*0  miNCETON,  N.  J.  -^^ 


Presented  by  Mr.  Samuel  Agnew  of  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


AgJieiv  Coll.  071  Baptism,  No. 


/(D/31 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/memoirofrogerwilOOkn 


MEMOIR 


K^^EI^    ^¥IliI.IAMS. 


FAC  SIMILE  or  the  HANVWmiTIXG 

Cbpi£^  fhinn  aDoaaneru  vriom  m  1677 . 


in  £  HI  O  I  R 


OF 


ROGER     WILLIAMS, 


THE 


FOUNDER   OF    THE    STATE 


OP 


RHODE-ISLAND. 


BY    JAMES   D.  KNOWLES, 

PROFESSOR   OF    PASTORAL    DUTIES   IN   THE    NEWTON   THEOLOGICAL 
INSTITUTION. 


■  Roger  Williams  justly  clEiims  the  honor  of  having  been  the  first  legislator  in  the 
world,  ia  its  latter  ages,  that  fully  and  eiFectually  provided  for  and  established  a 
full,  free  and  absolute  liberty  of  conscience."  Governor  Hopkins. 


BOSTON: 

LINCOLN,   EDMANDS   AND   CO. 
1834. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1883, 

BY    JAMES    D.    KNOWLES, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Massachusetts. 


Lewis  &  Penniman,  Printers. 
Bromfield-street. 


TO  THE 


©ttfiftifii  D(  Mftotit=^1^ulun'tj(f 


THIS    VOLUME 


IS    RESPECTFULLY    INSCRIBED    BY 


THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


The  citizens  of  the  United  States  have  sometimes  been 
ridiculed,  for  an  alleged  propensity  to  please  their  imagi- 
nations with  romantic  visions  concerning  the  future  glory 
of  their  country.  They  boast,  it  is  said,  not  of  what  the 
nation  has  been,  nor  of  what  it  is,  but  of  what  it  will  be. 
The  American  faculty,  it  is  affirmed,  is  anticipation,  not 
memory. 

If  the  truth  of  this  charge  were  admitted,  it  might  be 
replied,  that  the  'proper  motion'  of  the  youthful  imagina- 
tion— in  states  as  well  as  in  individuals — is  towards  the 
future.  It  springs  forward,  with  buoyant  wing,  forgetting 
the  past,  and  disregarding  the  present,  in  the  eagerness  of 
its  desire  to  reach  fairer  scenes.  It  is  the  instinct  of  our 
nature,  the  irrepressible  longing  of  the  immortal  soul  for 
something  higher  and  better.  It  is  never  extinguished, 
though  frequent  disappointments  abate  its  ardor,  and  long 
experience  confirms  the  testimony  of  revelation,  that  per- 
fect happiness  is  sought  in  vain  on  earth.  In  mature  age, 
therefore,  reason  has  corrected  the  errors  of  the  imagina- 
tion, and  the  old  man  looks  backward  to  his  early  years, 
as  the  happiest  period  of  his  life,  and  praises  the  men  and 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

the  scenes  of  his   youthful  days,   as   far   surpassing  those 
which  he  now  sees  around  him.* 

Most  nations  are  impelled,  by  the  same  principle, 
to  recur  to  some  past  epoch  in  their  history,  as  the  pe- 
riod of  their  greatest  glory.  There  is  little  in  the  pros- 
pect of  the  future  to  excite  their  hopes.  The  adherents 
to  old  institutions  dread  the  progress  of  that  spirit  of  inno- 
vation, which  has  already  overthrown  many  of  them,  and 
which  threatens  speedy  ruin  to  the  rest.  And  the  patriot, 
who  is  striving  to  raise  his  country  to  the  enjoyment  of 
liberty  and  happiness,  foresees  too  many  obstacles,  too 
much  fierce  strife,  suffering  and  bloodshed,  to  permit  him 
to  contemplate  the  future  without  anxiety. 

It  is  the  happiness  of  America,  that  almost  every  thing 
in  her  condition  invites  her  to  look  forward  with  hope. 
Her  perfect  freedom,!  her  rapid  progress,  the  elastic  energy 
of  her  national  character,  the  boundless  extent  of  her  ter- 
ritory, her  situation,  far  from  the  contentions  of  European 
nations,  and  safe  from  the  dangers  both  of  their  friendship 
and  of  their  hostility,  all  awaken  and  justify  the  confident 
hope,  that  she  is  destined  to  reach  a  height  of  prosperity 
and  power,  which  no  other  nation,  of  ancient  or  modern 
times,  has  attained. 

But  if  Americans  were  so  prone  to  look  forward,  that 
they  forgot  the  past,  it  would  certainly  be  a  fault,  which 
would  deserve  rebuke.  Bright  as  the  future  may  be,  the 
past  can  present  scenes,  on  which  the  American  may  gaze 
with  pleasure,  and  from  which  he  should  draw  lessons  of 
wisdom  and  incitements  to  patriotism.  Passing  by  the 
prosperous  course  of  our  history,  since  the  adoption  of  the 

*  "  Laudator  temporis  acti, 
Se  puero,  castigator  censorque  minorum." 

Horace  de  Arte  Poet.  1. 173-4. 
t  It  is  mortifying  and  painful,  that  truth  compels  us  to  except  any 
persons  among  us  from  this  remark. 


PREFACE.  IX 

Constitution ;  not  pausing  to  contemplate  the  formation  of 
that  Constitution,  though  it  was  one  of  the  most  glorious 
achievements  of  wisdom  and  national  virtue  ;  looking  be- 
yond the  unparalleled  revolution  itself;  the  character  and 
actions  of  the  men  who  laid  the  foundations  of  this  country 
deserve  the  careful  study,  and  must  attract  the  admiration, 
of  every  true-hearted  American.  The  motives,  the  policy, 
the  personal  qualities  of  the  founders ;  their  fervent  piety, 
their  courage  and  patience,  their  unwavering  constancy, 
their  calm  wisdom,  their  love  of  learning,  and  their  thirst 
for  liberty,  entitle  those  venerable  men  to  the  affection 
and  gratitude  of  every  succeeding  generation.  Their 
faults  we  may  now  see  more  clearly  than  their  contempo- 
raries ;  but  those  faults  were,  for  the  most  part,  the  ex- 
cesses of  their  virtues,  the  errors  of  wise  heads  and  pure 
hearts,  whose  piety  sometimes  became  austere,  and  whose 
conscientious  love  of  truth  occasionally  betrayed  them  into 
intolerance.  There  is  no  stain  upon  their  personal  char- 
acter ;  and  the  American  may  point,  with  grateful  pleasure, 
to  the  bright  names  of  Winslow,  Winthrop,  Hooker,  Penn, 
Baltimore,  Oglethorpe,  and  their  associates,  as  among  the 
choicest  treasures  of  his  country. 

Among  these  names,  that  sense  of  justice,  which  event- 
ually triumphs  over  temporary  prejudice  and  wrong,  has 
already  placed  that  of  Roger  Williams.  Long  misunder- 
stood and  misrepresented,  he  was  excluded  from  his  appro- 
priate place  among  the  chief  founders  and  benefactors  of 
New-England.  The  early  historians,  Morton,  Mather, 
Hubbard,  and  even  Winthrop,  spoke  harshly  of  his  charac- 
ter. His  principles,  both  political  and  religious,  were 
offensive  to  the  first  generations  ;  and  it  is  not  strange, 
that  he  was  viewed  and  treated  as  a  fanatical  heresiarch  in 
religion,  and  a  factious  disturber  of  the  state. 

Later  writers  have  treated  his  memory  with  more  re- 
gpect  j  and  we  might  quote  many  honorable  testimonies  to 


X  PREFACE. 

his  principles  and  his  character.  But  no  extended  memoir 
of  his  life  has  ever  before  been  published.  It  would  not 
be  difficult  to  assign  reasons  for  this  neglect.  The  want 
of  materials,  and  the  contradictory  accounts  of  various 
writers,  were  sufficient  to  deter  his  friends  from  the  under- 
taking, and  a  lingering  prejudice  against  him  prevented 
others.  The  attention  of  some  able  writers  has,  neverthe- 
less, been  drawn  to  the  subject.  Dr.  Belknap  designed  to 
give  to  the  life  of  Roger  Williams  a  place  in  his  American 
Biography,  and  he  made  application  to  several  persons  in 
Rhode-Island  for  materials,  but  without  success.  It  was 
announced,  a  few  years  since,  that  Robert  Southey,  Esq. 
intended  to  write  the  life  of  Mr.  Williams.  He  probably 
relinquished  the  plan,  for  the  same  reason.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Greenwood,  of  Boston,  formed  the  design  of  preparing  a 
memoir,  at  the  suggestion,  I  believe,  of  Mr.  Southey.  Mr. 
Greenwood  collected  many  valuable  materials,  but  the 
failure  of  his  health,  and  other  causes,  induced  him  to 
abandon  the  undertaking.* 

My  attention  was  directed  to  the  subject,  in  1829,  by 
hearing  the  Rev.  Dr.  Sharp,  of  Boston,  pronounce,  with 
his  usual  eloquence  and  true  love  of  freedom,  a  eulogium 
on  the  character  of  Roger  Williams.  I  soon  afterwards 
suggested  to  him,  that  the  life  of  Mr.  Williams  ought  to  be 
better  known.  He  urged  me  to  undertake  the  office  of 
biographer,  and  many  other  friends  concurred  in  the  re- 
quest. I  consented,  having  learned  that  Mr.  Greenwood 
had  resolved  to  relinquish   the   design.      I  made  an  appli- 

*  Mr.  Savage,  in  his  edition  of  Winthrop,  (vol.  i.  p.  42)  excited, 
by  the  following  note,  a  hope,  which  was  unhappily  disappointed: 
"  Deficiency  in  all  former  accounts  of  this  great,  earliest  asserter  of 
religious  freedom,  will,  we  may  hope,  soon  be  supphed  by  a  gentle- 
man, whose  elegance  and  perspicuity  of  style  are  already  known. 
Several  quires  of  original  letters  of  Williams'  have  been  seen  by  me, 
transcribed  by  or  for  the  Rev.  Mr.  Greenwood,  of  this  city," 


PREFACE.  XI 

cation  to  him,  however,  to  be  informed  of  his  real  purposes. 
With  the  most  generous  politeness,  he  placed  at  my  dis- 
posal all  the  materials  which  he  had  collected.  Among 
them  were  between  twenty  and  thirty  unpublished  letters, 
copied  from  the  originals,  v/hich  were  kindly  lent  to  him 
by  the  Hon.  Thomas  L.  Winthrop.  These  letters  form  a 
valuable  part  of  this  volume. 

In  my  further  search  for  information,  I  soon  discovered, 
that  many  persons,  well  acquainted  with  our  early  history, 
knew  very  little  of  Roger  Williams.  In  the  books,  I  found 
almost  every  important  fact,  concerning  him,  stated  differ- 
ently. I  was  obliged  to  gather  hints  from  disconnected 
documents,  and  to  reconcile  contradictory  assertions  ;  and 
in  fine,  my  labor  often  resembled  that  of  the  miner,  who 
sifts  large  masses  of  sand,  to  obtain  a  few  particles  of  gold. 
I  have  spared  neither  toil  nor  expense  to  obtain  materials. 
I  have  endeavored  to  make  the  book  as  complete  and  ac- 
curate as  possible.  It  has  cost  me  much  time,  and  a 
degree  of  labor,  which  no  one  can  estimate,  who  has  not 
been  engaged  in  similar  investigations. 

I  have,  however,  received  much  aid  from  several  indi- 
viduals. Besides  Mr.  Greenwood,  my  thanks  are  especially 
due  to  the  venerable  Nestor  of  Providence,  Moses  Brown, 
and  to  John  Howland,  Esq.  Other  gentlemen  are  entitled 
to  my  gratitude,  whom  it  would  give  me  pleasure  to  name. 
I  have,  too,  derived  great  assistance  from  several  books. 
Among  these  I  ought  to  mention  Mr.  Backus'  History, 
from  which  I  have  copied  a  number  of  valuable  documents, 
and  gathered  important  information.  Mr.  Savage's  admi- 
rable edition  of  Winthrop's  Journal  has  been  my  chief 
guide,  in  narrating  the  early  events  of  Mr.  Williams'  his- 
tory, after  his  arrival  in  this  country.  From  the  valuable 
Annals  of  Dr.  Holmes,  and  from  the  Library  and  the  Col- 
lections of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  I  have 
derived  important  aid. 


Xll  PREFACE. 

I  have  strongly  felt  the  want  of  a  history  of  Rhode- 
Island.  I  have  been  obliged  to  relate  many  historical 
facts,  which  I  have  collected,  in  various  ways,  at  the 
hazard  of  mistake  and  deficiency.  It  has  been  somewhat 
mortifying  to  me,  as  a  native  of  Rhode-Island,  to  be  obliged 
to  rely  on  the  writers  of  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth,  for 
facts  concerning  the  history  of  Rhode-Island,  which  could 
not,  otherwise,  be  ascertained.  While  all  the  other  New- 
England  States,  and  indeed  most  of  the  States  of  the 
Union,  have  histories,  it  is  hoped  that  Rhode-Island  will 
not  much  longer  be  content  to  bear  the  reproach,  of  being 
indebted  to  other  States  for  her  knowledge  of  her  own 
history.  I  am  glad  to  learn,  that  the  papers  of  the  late 
Theodore  Foster,  Esq.  are  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
Rhode-Island  Historical  Society.  I  hope  that  the  Society 
will  immediately  appoint  some  competent  person  to  prepare 
a  history  of  the  State.  The  Legislature  ought  to  aid  in 
procuring  the  requisite  documents  from  England,  and  in 
defraying  other  necessary  expenses.  The  State  has  no 
reason  to  be  ashamed  of  her  history.  She  owes  it  to  her- 
self to  record  it  truly. 

The  want  of  such  a  history  has  induced  me  to  insert  in 
this  volume  several  documents  v/hich  cannot  readily  be 
found.  I  am  not  aware  of  any  Rhode-Island  publication, 
except  a  file  of  newspapers,  in  which  a  copy  of  the  first 
charter  is  contained.  The  second  charter  is  not  easily  to 
be  procured.  Very  few,  probably,  of  the  citizens  possess 
a  copy. 

It  may,  indeed,  be  objected  to  this  book,  that  it  is  en- 
cumbered with  documents.  But  I  have  desired  to  furnish 
the  reader  with  the  means  of  forming  an  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Williams,  by  a  perusal  of  his  own  letters,  and 
other  writings.  These  are  never  common-place.  They 
arc  all  marked  with  the  impress  of  his  character.  The 
numerous  authorities  have  been  added,  in  order  that  if  I 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

have  committed  mistakes,  the  reader  might  have  the  means 
of  correcting  them.  It  would  be  strange,  if,  amid  so  much 
contradiction  and  confusion,  I  have  fallen  into  no  errors. 
I  can  only  say,  that  I  have  anxiously  labored  to  learn  the 
truth ;  and  I  shall  be  thankful  for  any  suggestions,  which 
may  tend  to  make  the  book  more  accurate  and  useful. 

A  few  of  the  notes  are  marked  "  G."  They  were  ap- 
pended by  Mr.  Greenwood  to  the  documents  which  he 
loaned  to  me,  and  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  copy  them, 
as  valuable  illustrations. 

Roger  Williams  lived  in  an  eventful  period,  and  a  me- 
moir of  him  must  contain  many  references  to  contemporary 
personages  and  events.  I  have  endeavored  to  speak  of 
these  with  candor  and  kindness.  The  character  and 
actions  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers  have  necessarily  come  under 
review.  I  have  been  obliged,  occasionally,  to  censure ; 
but  it  has  been  a  source  of  pleasure,  that  the  more  I  inves- 
'tigated  their  actions,  the  more  deep  and  sincere  was  my 
veneration  for  those  excellent  men.  It  is  due  to  them  to 
point  out  those  errors  in  their  conduct,  which  they,  were 
they  now  living,  would  lament  and  condemn. 

The  position  in  which  this  country  is  placed,  as  the  great 
exemplar  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  makes  it  inexpress- 
ibly important,  that  the  true  principles  on  which  this  liberty 
rests,  should  be  thoroughly  understood.  A  responsibility 
lies  on  the  citizens  of  this  country,  which  no  other  nation 
ever  sustained.  Here  it  is  to  be  demonstrated,  that  man 
can  govern  himself,  and  that  religion  can  walk  abroad  in 
her  own  dignity  and  unsullied  loveliness,  as  the  messen- 
ger of  God,  armed  with  his  authority,  and  wielding  his 
omnipotence ;  that  she  can  speak  to  the  hearts  of  men 
with  a  voice  of  power,  which  owes  no  part  of  its  emphasis 
to  the  force  of  human  laws ;  that  she,  instead  of  leaning 
on  the  arm  of  the  magistrate  for  support,  can  enter  the 
halls  of  legislation^  the  cabinets  of  rulers,   and  the  courts 


PREFACE. 


of  justice,  to  spread  out  her  laws,  and  proclaim  her  eternal 
sanctions.  If  civil  liberty  fail  here,  or  if  religion  be  over- 
whelmed with  error  or  worldliness,  the  great  cause  of  hu- 
man happiness  will  suffer  a  disastrous  check.  It  is  believ- 
ed, that  a  better  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  Roger 
Williams  will  have  a  salutary  tendency,  and  that  the 
publication  of  a  memoir  of  his  life  is  opportune,  at  this 
crisis,  when,  both  in  America  and  in  Europe,  the  public 
mind  is  strongly  agitated  by  questions  wiiich  affect  both 
the  civil  and  the  religious  rights  of  men.  If  this  book 
shall  contribute,  in  the  slightest  degree,  to  the  promotion 
of  truth  and  freedom,  I  shall  rejoice,  and  praise  Him,  who 
has  restored  my  health,  and  given  me  leisure  to  finish  the 
work. 

A  word  or  two  of  explanation,  on  certain  points,  may 
be  necessary.  In  the  quotations  from  old  documents,  I 
have  altered  the  orthography  conformably  to  present 
usage.  One  reason  for  this  course  was,  that  scarcely  any 
writer  was  consistent  with  himself,  especially  in  relation  to 
proper  names.  There  is,  too,  nothing  in  orthography  to 
mark  the  style  of  a  particular  writer,  and  it  may,  conse- 
quently, be  altered,  without  affecting  the  idiomatic  pecul- 
iarities of  his  composition,  while  the  book  is  freed  from 
the  uncouth  forms  of  words  spelled  according  to  antiquated 
fashions. 

The  Indian  names  have  been  reduced  to  a  uniform  or- 
thography, agreeably  to  what  was  believed  to  be  the  best 
form.  They  are  spelled,  in  a  most  perplexing  variety  of 
ways,  by  different  authors.  Roger  Williams  himself  some- 
times spelled  the  same  name  differently  in  the  same  docu- 
ment. 

I  have  endeavored  to  arranoje  the  dates  accordinor  to  the 
old  style.  Many  mistakes  have  been  committed,  by  vari- 
ous authors,  from  a  neglect  of  this  point.  Before  1752, 
the  year  was  computed  to  commence  on  the  25th  of  March, 


PREFACE.  XV 

which  was,  accordingly,  reckoned  as  the  first  month,  and 
January  and  February  were  the  eleventh  and  twelfth. 
Dates  between  the  1st  of  January  and  the  25th  of  March, 
are  usually,  in  this  book,  marked  with  both  years.  Thus 
the  time  of  Mr.  Williams'  arrival  in  America  was  the  5th 
of  February,  1630-1. 

No  portrait  of  Roger  Williams,  it  is  believed,  is  in  exist- 
ence. As  the  best  substitute,  a  fac-simile  of  his  hand 
writing  has  been  engraved,  and  prefixed  to  this  volume. 
It  was  copied  from  a  document,  kindly  furnished  by  Moses 
Brown. 

Ill  health,  and  various  other  causes,  have  delayed  the 
work.  Further  search  might,  perhaps,  detect  additional 
materials  ;  but  my  official  duties,  and  other  reasons,  forbid 
a  longer  delay.  It  is  now  respectfully  commended  to  the 
favor  of  the  public ;  and  above  all,  to  the  blessing  of  Him, 
without  whose  smile  human  approbation  would  be  vain.  I 
cannot,  and,  indeed,  ought  not  to,  be  without  some  so- 
licitude respecting  the  reception  of  a  work,  on  which  I 
have  expended  so  much  time  and  labor,  cheered  by  the 
hope,  that  it  would  serve  the  cause  of  human  happiness. 
I  am  well  aware,  that  it  is  defective  in  several  points  ;  but 
it  has  not  been  in  my  power  to  make  it  more  complete.  I 
can  easily  anticipate  objections,  which  will  arise  in  some 
minds.  One  of  these,  it  is  probable,  will  be,  that  I  have 
spoken  too  freely  of  the  faults  of  Christians  and  ministers ; 
that  I  have  unveiled  scenes  of  intolerance  and  persecution, 
which  the  enemies  of  religion  may  view  with  malicious 
joy.  But  my  reply  is,  that  I  have  not  alluded  to  such  topics, 
except  where  my  main  theme  compelled  me  to  speak  of 
them.  I  trust,  that  what  I  have  said  is  true,  and  uttered  in 
a  respectful  and  kind  spirit.  We  must  not,  in  order  to 
promote  or  defend  religion,  attempt  to  conceal  events 
which  history  has  already  recorded,  and  much  less  to  palli- 
ate conduct,  which  we  cannot  justify.     Let  us,  rather,  con- 


XVI  PREFACE. 

fess,  with  frankness  and  humility,  our  own  fauUs,  and  those 
of  our  fathers  ;  learn  wisdom  from  past  errors  ;  and  bring 
ourselves  and  others,  as  speedily  as  possible,  to  the  adoption 
of  those  pure  principles,  by  which  alone  Christianity  can 
be  sustained  and  diffused.  The  book  of  God  records, 
among  its  salutary  lessons,  the  mistakes  and  sins  of  good 
men.  I  have  believed,  that  the  wrong  and  mischievous  ten- 
dency of  intolerance  could  not  be  more  forcibly  exhibited, 
than  in  the  conduct  of  our  fathers.  All  men  concede  to 
them  sincere  piety,  pure  lives  and  conscientious  upright- 
ness of  purpose.  How  pernicious,  then,  must  be  a  princi- 
ple, which  could  so  bias  the  minds  of  such  men,  as  to  im- 
pel them  to  oppress,  banish  or  put  to  death  their  fellow 
Christians !  How  dangerous  the  principle,  if,  in  such 
hands,  its  operation  was  so  terrible  !  We  need  not  wonder 
that,  under  the  direction  of  bigotry,  ambition,  cupidity  and 
despotism,  it  produced  the  horrors  of  St.  Bartholomew's, 
and  the  atrocities  of  Smithfield.  The  experience  of  New- 
England  has  proved,  that  the  best  men  cannot  be  trusted 
with  power  over  the  conscience ;  and  that  this  power  must 
be  wrested  from  the  hands  of  all  men,  and  committed  to 
Him  who  alone  is  competent  to  wield  it.  This  volume  is 
dedicated  to  the  defence  of  religious  liberty,  both  by  an 
exposition  of  the  principles  of  Roger  Williams,  and  by  a 
display  of  the  evils  of  intolerance.  If  it  shall  thus  aid  in 
hastening  the  universal  triumph  of  pure  and  undefiled  re- 
ligion, my  strongest  desire  will  be  accomplished, 

Newton,  December  12,  1833, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  Page 

Early  life  of  Mr.  Williams — state  of  religious  affairs  in  Eng- 
land— Mr.  Williams  embarks  for  America,  21 

CHAPTER  H. 

Historical  sketch — view  of  the  condition  of  the  country,  at  the 
time  of  Mr.  Williams'  arrival,  33 

CHAPTER  HI. 

Mr.  Williams  refuses  to  unite  with  the  Boston  church — is  in- 
vited to  Salem — interference  of  the  General  Court — removes^ 
to  Plymouth — the  Indians — difficulties  at  Plymouth — birth  of 
Mr.  Williams'  eldest  child,  45 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Returns  to  Salem — ministers'  meetings — Court  again  interferes 
— the  rights  of  the  Indians — his  book  against  the  patent — 
wearing  of  veils — controversy  about  the  cross  in  the  colors,       55 

CHAPTER  V. 
Proceedings  which  led  to  his  banishment — freeman's  oath — va- 
rious  charges   against  him — sentence — birth   of  his   second 
child — leaves  Salem   for    Narraganset    Bay — review   of  the 

64 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Numbers,  condition,  language,  rights,  &c.  of  the  Indians  in 
New  England,  82 


XVlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Mr.  Williams  proceeds  to  Seekonk — crosses  the  river,  and 
founds  the  town  of  Providence,  100 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Purchase   of  lands   from   the   Indians — division   of  the   lands 
among  the  settlers,  106 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Settlement  of  the  town  of  Providence — Whatcheer — islands  of 
Prudence,  Patience,  and  Hope,  118 

CHAPTER  X. 
Mr.  Williams   prevents  the  Indian  league — war  with  the  Pe- 
quods — their  defeat  and  ruin,  125 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Settlement  on  Rhode-Island  commenced — Mrs.  Hutchinson — 
settlement  at  Pawtuxet,  138 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Condition  of  Providence — execution  of  three  murderers  of  an 
Indian — birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  eldest  son,  148 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Baptism  of  Mr.  Williams — establishment  of  the  first  Baptist 
church  in  Providence — Mr.  Williams  soon  leaves  the  church,  162 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Affairs  of  the  Indians — birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  fourth  child — 
disputes  at  Providence  about  boundaries — Committee  of  Ar- 
bitration— account  of  Samuel  Gorton,  179 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  second  son — league  of  the  colonies — 
war  between  the  Narragansets  and  Mohegans — capture  and 
death  of  Miantinomo — Mr.  Williams  embarks  for  England,      190 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Mr.  Williams'  first  visit  to  England — Key  to  the  Indian  lan- 
guages— charter — birth  of  Mr.  WiHiams'  youngest  child — 
Bloody  Tenet — he  returns  to  America — reception  at  Bos- 
ton and  Providence — again  aids  in  preventing  an  Indian 
war,  196 


CONTENTS.  Xix 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Letters  to  John  Winthrop — organization  of  the  government — 
vote  of  money  to  Mr.  Williams — agreement  of  several  in- 
habitants of  Providence — dissensions — Indian  troubles,  206 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

Mr.  Coddington — letters  to  John  Winthrop — execution  of 
Charles  I.  227 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Warwick — Mr.  Williams'  compensation — imprisonment  of  John 
Clarke  and  Obadiah  Holmes — Mr.  Coddington' s  separate 
charter — Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  prepare  to  go  to 
England,  238 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  sail — Mr.  Coddington's  charter 
vacated — troubles  in  Rhode-Island — Mr.  Williams  returns — 
Sir  Henry  Vane — Milton — Mr.  Williams  endeavors  to  re- 
establish order — Indians — letter  on  religious  and  civil  lib- 
erty, 252 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Troubles  in  Rhode-Island — William  Harris — Quakers — severe 
laws  against  them  in  other  colonies — conduct  of  Rhode- 
Island — Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Harris — Mr.  Williams  not 
re-elected  as  President,  281 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Death  of  Cromwell — his  character — Richard  Cromwell  suc- 
ceeds— restoration  of  Charles  II. — Act  of  Uniformity,  and 
ejection  of  the  Non-conformists — affairs  in  Rhode-Island — 
Indian  deed— letters  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  300 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Infant  baptism — half-way  covenant — laws  to  support  religion — 
charter  from  Charles  II. — first  meeting  of  Assembly — Mr. 
Clarke — difficulties  about  boundaries — charges  against  Rhode- 
Island,  concerning  Catholics  and  Quakers,  315 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Mr.  Williams'  public  services — religious  habits — efforts  as  a 
minister — Indians — private  aflfairs — letter  to  John  Whipple,    326 


XX  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Controversy  with  the  Quakers — Philip's  war — letters — Mr. 
WilUaans'  death,  336 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Mr.  Williams'  writings — Key — Bloody  Tenet — liberty  of  con- 
science— Mr.  Cotton's  Reply — Mr.  Williams'  Rejoinder,  356 

CHAPTER  XXVH. 

Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's — the  ministry — controversy 
with  George  Fox — other  writings — character  as  a  writer — 
his  general  character,  376 

Appendix,  391 


MEMOIR. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Early  life  of  Mr.  Williams — State  of  religious  affairs  in  England — 
Mr.  Williams  embarks  for  America. 

The  obvious  analogy  between  human  life  and  a  river 
has  supplied  the  poet  with  similes,  and  the  moralist  with 
arguments.  The  resemblance  of  the  two  objects  is,  in  this 
point,  at  least,  worthy  of  notice,  that  their  origin  awakens 
the  curiosity  of  every  reflective  mind.  This  feeling  has 
impelled  many  travellers  to  a  perilous  search  for  the  sources 
of  the  Niger  and  the  Nile ;  and  it  made  Lewis  and  his  as- 
sociates look,  with  triumphant  joy,  on  the  little  rill,  at  the 
summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which  flows  on,  and  ex- 
pands into  the  mighty  Missouri. 

We  feel  a  similar  desire,  when  we  survey  the  actions  of 
a  distinguished  individual,  to  learn  the  incidents  of  his 
youth.  The  mind  is  perplexed  and  dissatisfied,  if  such  a 
personage  has  suddenly  appeared,  like  Manco  Capac  to 
the  Peruvians,  as  if  he  had  indeed  alighted  on  the  earth 
from  the  sun,  or  risen,  like  the  fabled  Venus,  from  the 
ocean. 

This  curiosity  has  valuable  uses.  The  instruction 
which  is  gathered  from  the  lives  of  men  is  drawn,  in 
great  part,  from  a  view  of  the  steps,  by  which  they  ad- 
3 


22  MEMOIR     OF 

vanced  to  their  subsequent  elevation  in  virtue  and  useful- 
ness, or  to  a  bad  eminence  in  crime.  The  character  of 
most  men  is  formed  early,  and  we  can  scarcely  pronounce 
a  fair  judgment  respecting  any  individual,  unless  we  take 
into  the  account  the  circumstances,  which  shed  a  propi- 
tious or  malignant  influence  on  those  early  years,  when 
his  habits  were  fixed,  and  his  principles  imbibed. 

It  is  a  subject  of  regret,  that  of  the  early  life  of  Roger 
Williams  so  little  is  known.  A  few  facts  only  have  been 
preserved,  and  these  do  not  rest  on  very  certain  evidence. 
It  is  remarkable,  that  in  his  numerous  writings,  there  are 
no  allusions  to  his  parents,  to  the  place  of  his  birth  and 
education,  and  to  other  points  relating  to  his  early  years. 
There  are,  in  his  letters  and  books,  but  two  or  three  inci- 
dental references  to  events  anterior  to  his  arrival  in  this 
country ;  though  his  allusions  to  early  occurrences  after 
his  emigration  are  very  frequent. 

He  was  about  32  years  of  age  when  he  reached  our 
shores ;  a  period  of  life,  when  the  energy  of  youth  remains 
without  its  rashness,  and  the  mind  has  acquired  steadiness, 
without  the  timid  caution  and  fixed  pertinacity  of  old  age. 
It  is  a  period,  however,  when  the  character  of  most  men  is 
already  formed.  Though  new  situations  and  difficult 
exigencies  may  develope  unexpected  powers,  and  give 
prominence  to  certain  traits  of  character,  yet  the  mind 
commonly  remains  unchanged  in  its  essential  qualities.  It 
was  long  since  said  by  Horace,  that  those  who  cross  the 
ocean  pass  under  a  new  sky,  but  do  not  acquire  a  new 
disposition.*  This  was  probably  true  of  Mr.  Williams  ; 
and  if  we  could  trace  his  early  history,  we  should  undoubt- 
edly see  an  exhibition  of  the  same  principles  and  temper 
which  distinguished  his  subsequent  career. 

It  may,  however,  be  said  of  most  of  the  prominent  men 
among  the  first  settlers  of  New  England,  that  their  history 
begins  at  the  period  of  their  arrival  here.  Our  accounts 
of  their  early  lives  are  very  brief.  They  were  too  busy  to 
record  their  own  early  fortunes,  and  too  pious  to  feel  any 
pride  in  displaying  their  descent,  their  virtues,  or  their 
sufferings.     The  present  and  the  future  filled  their  minds: 

*  "  CcDlum  non  animum  mutant,  qui  trans  maro  currunt.' 

Ep.  lib.  i.  11. 


ROGEK.WILLIAMS.  2^ 

and  they  seem  to  have  feh,  that  the  wide  ocean  which  sep- 
arated them  from  the  land  of  their  fathers  had  effected  a 
similar  disjunction  of  their  history.  Of  Roger  Williams 
less  is  known  than  of  some  others,  because  no  efforts  were 
made  by  early  biographers  to  collect  facts  concerning  him. 
His  opponents  were  more  disposed  to  obliterate  his  name, 
than  to  record  his  life.  His  contemporary  frieiKls  were 
sharers  in  his  sufferings,  and  were  not  at  leisure  to  relate 
his  story  or  their  own.  Even  the  records  of  the  church 
which  he  founded  at  Providence  contain  no  notice  of  him, 
written  earlier  than  1775,  when  the  Rev.  John  Stanford, 
a  venerable  minister,  still  living  in  New- York,  collected 
the  fugitive  traditions  concerning  the  origin  of  the  church. 

These  traditions  state  that  Mr.  Williams  was  born  in 
Wales,  in  1599.*  The  place  of  his  birth,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  his  parents,  are  not  known.  We  may  easily  believe 
that  he  was  a  native  of  Wales.  He  possessed  the  Welch 
temperament — excitable  and  ardent  feelings,  generosity, 
courage,  and  firmness,  which  sometimes,  perhaps,  had  a 
touch  of  obstinacy.  It  has  been  supposed,  that  he  was  a 
relative  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  one  of  whose  ancestors  was 
named  Williama.t  This  conjecture  has  not  a  very  solid 
basis.  Roger  Williams  does  not  claim,  in  his  writings, 
any  kindred  to  the  formidable  Protector,  though  he  repeat- 
edly alludes  to  his  intimacy  with  him,  and  once  speaks  of 
a  "  close  conference  with  Oliver,"  on  the  subject  of  Popery, 
which  they  both  abhorred  and  feared.  It  appears,  from  a 
remark  in  one  of  his  books,  that  he  became  pious  in  early 
life.  "  The  truth  is,  from  my  childhood,  now  above  three- 
score years,  the  Father  of  lights  and  mercies  touched  my 
soul  with  a  love  to  himself,  to  his  only  begotten,  the  true 
Lord  Jesus,  to  his  holy  Scriptures,"  &c.| 

That  his  parents  were  in   humble  life,  and  that  his  dis- 


*  Tlie  records  of  the  church  say  1598,  (Benedict,  vol.  i.  p.  473) 
but  this  statement  appears  to  be  a  mistake.  Mr.  Williams,  in  a  let- 
ter dated  July  21,  1679,  (Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  421)  said  that  he  was 
then  ^'  near  to  fourscore  years  of  age."  This  proves  that  he  was  not 
born  in  1598,  and  makes  it  probable  that  the  next  year  was  the  true 
time. 

t  Baylies'  History  of  Plymouth,  vol.  i.  p.  284.  See  Appendix  to 
this  work,  (A.) 

t  Geoj-ge  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,  written  in  1673- 


24  MEMOIROF 

position  was  pious  and  thoughtful,  may  be  inferred  from  an 
incident  which  is  related  concerning  him,  and  which,  if 
true,  had  a  great  share  in  determining  his  future  course. 
It  is  said,  that  the  famous  lawyer.  Sir  Edward  Coke,  ob- 
served him,  one  day,  during  public  worship,  taking  notes 
of  the  discourse.  His  curiosity  was  excited,  and  he  re- 
quested the  boy  to  show  him  his  notes.  Sir  Edward  was 
so  farorably  impressed  by  the  evidences  of  talent  which 
these  exhibited,  that  he  requested  the  parents  of  young 
Williams  to  intrust  their  son  to  his  care.  He  placed  him, 
as  the  tradition  runs,  at  the  University  of  Oxford,*  where 
he  drank  deeply  at  the  fountains  of  learning.  His  writings 
testify,  that  his  education  was  liberal,  according  to  the  taste 
of  those  times,  when  logic  and  the  classics  formed  the 
chief  objects  of  study  at  the  universities. 

He  afterwards  commenced  the  study  of  the  law,  at  the 
desire  and  under  the  guidance  of  his  generous  patron,  who 
would  naturally  wish  to  train  his  pupil  to  the  honorable 
and  useful  profession  which  he  himself  adorned.  The 
providence  of  God  may  be  seen  in  thus  leading  the  mind 
of  Mr.  Williams  to  that  acquaintance  with  the  principles  of 
law  and  government,  which  qualified  him  for  his  duties  as 
legislator  of  his  little  colony. 

But  he  probably  soon  found  that  the  study  of  the  law 
was  not  congenial  with  his  taste.  Theology  possessed 
more  attractions  to  a  mind  and  heart  like  his.  To  this 
divine  science  he  directed  his  attention,  and  received  Epis- 
copal orders.     It  is  stated,  that  he  assumed,  while  in  Eng- 

*  Wood,  in  his  Athenae  Oxonienses,  after  giving  an  account  of  a 
gentleman  named  Roger  Williams,  says,  "  I  find  another  Roger  Wil- 
liams, later  than  the  former,  an  inhabitant  of  Providence,  in  New  Eng- 
land, and  author  of  (1)  A  Key  to  the  Language  of  JVew- England,  l^n- 
don  ,1643,  oct.  (2)  The  Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's,  or  a  Discourse 
of  the  Propagaiion  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  Jesus,  London,  1652,  qu. 
&c.  But  of  what  university  the  said  Williams  was,  if  of  any,  I 
know  not,  or  whether  a  real  fanatick  or  Jesuit."  This  assertion  of 
Wood  renders  it  doubtful  whether  Mr.  Williams  was  educated  at 
Oxford,  or  elsewhere.  In  the  absence  of  all  evidence,  it  might  be 
thought  more  probable  that  he  received  his  education  at  Cambridge, 
where  a  large  proportion  of  the  leading  Puritans  were  educated. 
Coke  himself  was  a  graduate  of  Cambridge,  and  would  probably 
prefer  to  place  Williams  there.  Inquiries  have  been  sent  to  Eng- 
land, for  information  on  this  point,  but  they  have  not  been  success- 
ful. 


k  O  G  K  R      W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S  .  25 

iand,  the  charge  of  a  parish  ;  that  his  preaching  was  highly 
esteemed,  and  his  private  character  revered.* 

We  have  thus  recited  the  traditions  which  have  been 
currejit  in  Rhode  Island.  There  is  undoubtedly  some 
truth  in  them,  though  the  story  is  a  little  romantic,  and 
may  have  received  some  embellishment  in  its  progress. 

Roger  Williams  entered  on  public  life  at  an  eventful 
period,  when  the  national  mind  was  strongly  agitated  by 
those  political  and  religious  causes,  which  had  been  slowly 
operating  for  many  yeats,  and  which  soon  subverted  the 
throne  and  the  Episcopal  Church.  At  these  causes  we 
can  do  no  more  than  glance. 

The  Reformation,  in  England,  commenced  as  far  back 
as  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  when  Wick- 
lifTe  taught  the  pure  doctrines  of  the  Scriptures,  and  kin- 
dled a  great  light  for  the  guidance  of  the  people  in 
the  path  to  Heaven,  by  translating  the  Scriptures,  for 
the  first  time,  into  the  English  language.  He  was,  of 
course,  denounced  and  persecuted  by  the  Catholic  Church, 
but  his  doctrines  spread,  and  though  many  of  his  followers 
were  put  to  death,  and  the  utmost  druelty  was  practised, 
in  various  ways,  to  hinder  the  progress  of  the  truth,  yet 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation  were  extensively  diffused 
in  England,  before  Luther  and  his  fellow  laborers  com- 
menced their  glorious  ministry.  But  no  public  blow  was 
given  to  the  papal  power  in  England,  till  Henry  VIII.  find- 
ing the  authority  of  the  Pope  an  obstacle  to  his  favorite 
project  of  repudiating  his  wife  Catharine  and  marrying 
Anne  Boleyn,  renounced,  in  1534,  his  political  allegiance 
to  his  Holiness.!      The  King  was  created,  by  act  of  Par- 


*  Benedict,  vol.  i.  p.  473-4. 

t  The  refusal  of  the  Pope,  Clement  VII.  to  sanction  the  divorce, 
would  have  been  honorable  to  him,  if  it  had  not  undeniably  sprung 
fi-om  pohtical  motives.  He  at  first  prepared  a  bull,  granting  Henry's 
request,  but  in  a  short  time  he  thought  it  more  conducive  to  his  po- 
litical interests  to  suppress  it,  and  in  a  fit  of  anger  against  the  King 
for  a  supposed  insult,  the  Pope  issued  his  sentence,  prohibiting  the 
divorce,  and  threatening  the  King  with  excommunication  if  he  did 
not  recognise  Catharine  as  his  wife.  In  six  days  after,  he  received 
intelligence  which  made  him  earnestly  desire  to  annul  his  sentence, 
but  it  was  too  late.  His  attribute  of  infallibility  was  now  found 
inconvenient.  He  could  not  retract.  Henry  was  exasperated  and 
3* 


*26  M  E  M  O  I R     O  F 

liament,  the  Head  of  the  Church,  and  the  powers  which 
had  previously  been  claimed  and  exercised  by  the  Pope, 
were  transferred  to  the  King.  But,  while  the  papal  au- 
thority was  rejected,  the  doctrines  of  Popery  were  not 
discarded.  The  King  was  a  strenuous  believer  in  tran- 
substantiation,  purgatory,  sprinkling  of  holy  water,  invo- 
cation of  saints,  and  other  doctrines  and  rites  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  He  exacted  as  implicit  a  submission  to  his 
will  as  the  Pope  himself.  Indeed,  little  more  was  yet 
gained,  than  the  substitution  of  a  Pope  in  England  for  a 
Pope  in  Rome.  Henry  was  of  a  temper  too  despotic  to 
permit  him  to  be  a  friend  of  the  Protestant  religion. 
To  a  monarch  of  arbitrary  principles,  the  spirit  of  Popery 
is  more  congenial  than  that  of  the  Protestant  faith.  The 
Catholic  system  requires  an  unconditional  submission  to 
the  authority  of  man.  The  first  principle  of  Protestantism 
is  implicit  obedience  to  God  alone.  The  decisions  of 
Councils  and  the  commands  of  the  Pope  bind  the  Catholic  ; 
the  will  of  God,  as  it  is  uttered  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  is 
the  only  rule  of  faith  and  practice  to  the  true  Protestant. 

After  the  death  of  Henry,  his  son,  Edward  VI.  ascended 
the  throne.  He  was  a  religious  Prince,  and  a  zealous 
friend  of  the  Reformation.  The  Church  of  England  was 
purified  from  many  corruptions  during  his  reign,  a  liturgy 
was  compiled,  and  the  Protestant  religion  made  a  rapid 
progress  in  the  nation.  But  some  relics  of  Popery  were 
still  retained,  and  among  others,  the  vestments  of  the 
clergy.  It  was  deemed  indispensable,  that  the  priests 
should  wear  the  square  cap,  the  surplice,  the  cope,  the 
tippet,  and  other  articles  of  apparel,  which  were  in  use 
among  the  Popish  clergy.  Some  excellent  ministers  re- 
fused to  wear  these  garments,  on  the  ground  that  they 
were  associated  in  the  public  mind  with  Popery ;  were  re- 
garded by  many  of  the  people  with  superstitious  reverence, 
and  ought,  consequently,  to  be  rejected  with  the  other  cor- 
ruptions from  which  the  church  had  purged  herself  It 
was,  unquestionably,  very  unwise  to  retain  an  appendage 

renounced  his  political  allegiance,  though,  in  his  controversy  with 
Luther,  which  won  for  him  from  the  Pope  the  title  of  Defend- 
er of  the  Faith,  he  had  argued  that  the  primacy  of  the  Pope  was  of 
divine  right !  Histoire  du  Concile  de  Trent,  livre  i.  p.  65,  Amster- 
dam edition,  1686. 


ItOGERWlLLlAMS.  ^"7 

of  the  old  system,  which  tended  to  remind  the  people  of 
the  discarded  religion,  to  irritate  the  minds  of  its  enemies, 
while  it  nourished  the  attachment  to  it  which  some  per- 
sons secretly  retained,  and  to  suggest  the  obvious  conclu- 
sion, that  as  the  ministers  of  the  new  religion  resembled 
so  nearly  those  of  the  old,  the  difference  between  the  two 
systems  was  very  small.  The  effect  of  wearing  the  popish 
garments  was  so  manifestly  injurious  to  the  progress  of 
truth,  that  the  refusal  to  wear  them  was  not  a  trivial  scru- 
ple of  conscience,  as  it  may,  at  first  sight,  appear.  But 
the  attempt  to  enforce  the  use  of  them,  by  severe  penalties, 
and  by  expulsion  from  office,  was  unjust ;  and  it  led  to  a 
final  separation  of  the  Protestants  themselves  into  Con- 
formists and  Non-Conformists. 

After  Edward's  death,  and  the  accession  of  Mary,  Popery 
was  restored,  and  scenes  of  barbarous  cruelty  and  bloody 
persecution  ensued,  which  have  made  the  name  of  this 
Queen  infamous.  Many  hundreds  of  the  Protestants  per- 
ished at  the  stake,  or  in  prison,  and  multitudes  fied  to 
Germany,  Switzerland,  and  other  countries. 

The  reign  of  this  fierce  bigot  was  happily  short,  and 
Elizabeth  succeeded  her.  The  Protestant  religion  was  re- 
established, and  during  her  long  reign  it  gained  an  ascend- 
ancy which  it  has  never  since  lost  Yet  Elizabeth  pos- 
sessed the  despotic  temper  of  her  father.  She  had  a  fond- 
ness for  some  of  the  gaudy  rites  of  Popery.*  She  perempto- 
rily insisted  on  the  use  of  the  clerical  vestments,  and  on  a 
strict  conformity  to  all  the  other  ceremonies  of  the  church. 
The  final  separation  of  the  Non-Conformists  from  the 
Church  of  England  was  thus  hastened.  Those  vvlio  had 
fled  from  England  during  the  reign  of  Mary,  returned,  on 
the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  bringing  with  them  an  attach- 
ment to  the  purer  rites  of  the  Reformed  Churches  in  Hol- 
land, Switzerland  and  France.  Most  of  these  exiles,  and 
of  the  other  Non-Conformists,  were,  nevertheless,  will- 
ing to  subscribe  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  to  use  the  liturgy,  if  they  might  be  permitted 
to  omit  the  vestments,  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  baptism, 
and  some  other  ceremonies.  They  disliked  the  preten- 
sions of  the  Bishops,   and  many  of   them    preferred    the 

*  Elizabeth  often  said,  that  she  hated  the  Puritans  more  than  she 
did  the  Papists.     Neal,  vol.  i.  p.  319. 


*^  IviEMotti    t)^ 

Presbyterian  or  Independent  form  of  Church  govern* 
ment.  There  were,  too,  some  minor  points  in  the  liturgy , 
to  which  they  objected.  But  had  they  been  treated  with 
Christian  kindness,  and  allowed,  in  the  spirit  of  mutual 
forbearance  and  charity,  to  neglect  those  forms,  which  they 
considered  as  sinful  or  inexpedient,  they  would,  for  the 
most  part,  have  remained  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  and 
England  would  have  been  spared  the  manifold  crimes  and 
miseries,  which  issued  in  a  civil  war,  and  drenched  her 
soil  with  the  blood  cf  her  King,  and  of  thousands  of  her 
bravest  sons. 

But  the  principles  of  religious  liberty  were  then  un- 
known. The  Queen,  though  for  a  while  she  treated  the 
Non-Conformists  with  indulgence,  till  her  power  was  fully 
established,  soon  announced  to  them  her  sovereign  pleasure, 
that  they  should  submit  to  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  church. 
Severe  laws  were  passed  by  an  obsequious  Parliament,  and 
enforced,  with  ready  zeal,  by  servile  Bishops.  Every  min- 
ister who  refused  to  conform  to  all  the  prescribed  ceremo- 
nies was  liable  to  be  deprived  cf  his  office ;  and  a  large 
number  of  the  ablest  ministers  in  the  nation  were  thus 
expelled  and  silenced.*  In  order  to  enforce  the  laws  with 
the  utmost  rigor,  a  new  tribunal  was  erected,  called  the 


*  Neal  (vol.  i.  p.  23C)  ^jives  the  following  specimen  of  the  arbitrary 
manner  in  which  the  ministers  were  treated.  It  is  an  account  of 
the  examination  of  the  London  clerg'j/ :  ''  When  tlie  ministers  ap- 
peared in  court,  Mr.  Thomas  Cole,  a  clergyman,  being  placed  by  the 
side  of  the  Commissioners,  in  priest'y  apparel,  the  Bishop's  chan- 
cellor from  the  bench  addressed  them  in  these  words  :  '  My  masters, 
and  ye  ministers  of  Loudon,  the  Council's  pleasure  is,  that  ye  strictly 
keep  the  unity  of  apparel,  like  the  man  who  stands  here  canonically 
habited  with  a  square  cap,  a  scholar's  gown  priest-like,  a  tippet,  and 
in  the  church  a  linen  surplice.  Ye  that  will  subscribe,  write  volo ; 
those  that  will  not  subscribe,  write  nch.  Be  brief,  make  no  w^ords." 
Some  of  these  distressed  ministers  subscxibed  for  the  sake  of  their 
families,  but  thirty-seven  absolutely  refused.  They  were  immedi- 
ately suspended  from  olfice,  and  told,  that  unless  they  should  con- 
form in  three  months,  they  should  be  w^holly  deprived  of  their 
livings.  In  1585  and  1586,  it  was  found,  by  a  survey,  that  there 
were  only  2000  ministei-s,  who  were  able  to  preach,  to  serve  10,000 
churches.  Bishop  Sandys,  in  one  of  his  sermons  before  the  Queen, 
told  her  Majesty,  that  some  of  her  subjects  did  not  hear  one  sermon 
in  seven  years,  and  that,  their  blood  would  be  required  of  some  one. 
Elizabeth  thought  three  or  four  preachers  in  a  county  sufficient. 
Neal,  vol.  i.  p.  359. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  29 

Court  of  High  Commission,  consisting  of  Commissioners, 
appointed  by  the  Queen.  This  Court  was  invested  with 
power  to  arrest  ministers  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom,  to 
deprive  them  of  their  livings,  and  to  fine  or  imprison  them 
at  the  pleasure  of  the  Court.  ''  Instead  of  producing  wit- 
nesses in  open  court,  to  prove  the  charges,  they  assumed  a 
power  of  administering  an  oath  ex  officio,  whereby  the  pris- 
oner was  obliged  to  answer  all  questions  the  Court  should 
put  to  him,  though  never  so  prejudicial  to  his  own  defence. 
If  he  refused  to  swear,  he  was  imprisoned  for  contempt ; 
and  if  he  took  the  oath,  he  was  convicted  upon  his  own 
confession."*  By  this  Protestant  Inquisition,  and  by  other 
means,  one  fourth  of  the  preachers  in  England  are  said  to 
have  been  under  suspension.  Numerous  parishes  were 
destitute  of  preachers,  and  so  many  were  filled  by  illiterate 
and  profligate  men,  that  not  one  beneficed  clergyman  in 
six  was  capable  of  composing  a  sermon, t  Thus  were 
learned  and  pious  ministers  oppressed,  merely  for  their  con- 
scientious scruples  about  a  few  ceremonies,  their  families 
were  ruined,  the  people  were  deprived  of  faithful  teachers, 
the  progress  of  truth  was  hindered,  the  papists  were  grati- 
fied, and  a  state  of  irritation  was  produced  in  the  public 
mind,  which  led,  in  a  succeeding  reign,  to  the  disastrous 
issue  of  a  bloody  civil  war. 

Nor  was  the  edge  of  this  intolerance  turned  against  the 
clergy  alone.  The  people  were  rigorously  required  to  at- 
tend regularly  at  the  parish  churches. 

Measures  like  these  gradually  alienated  the  affections  of 
many  from  the  Established  Church,  and  convinced  them, 
that  there  was  no  prospect  of  obtaining  toleration,  or  of 
effecting  a  further  reform  in  the  church.  They  accordingly 
separated  from  it,  and  established  meetings,  where  the  cer- 
emonies were  not  practised.  These  Non-Conformists  were 
called  Puritans,  a  term  of  reproach  derived  from  the  Ca- 
thari,  or  Puritans,  of  the  third  century  after  Christ.  The 
term,  however,  was  not  inappropriate,  as  it  intimated  their 
desire  of  a  purer  form  of  worship  and  discipline  in  the 
church.  It  was  afterwards  applied  to  them  on  account  of 
the  purity  of  their  morals,  and  the  Calvinistic  cast  of  their 
doctrines. 


*^  Neal,  vol.  i.  preface.  t  Neal,  vol.  i.  preface. 


30 


MEMOIR     OF 


This  separation  occurred  in  the  year  1566.  The  storm 
of  royal  and  ecclesiastical  wrath  now  beat  the  more  fiercely 
on  the  heads  of  the  Puritans.  The  history  of  England,  for 
the  succeeding  century,  is  a  deplorable  narrative  of  oppres- 
sion, bloodshed  and  indescribable  misery,  inflicted  on  men 
and  women,  of  deep  piety  and  pure  lives,  but  guilty  of 
claiming  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  choosing  to  worship 
God  with  different  forms  from  those  which  the  National 
Church  prescribed.  No  man,  of  right  feelings,  can  read 
Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  without  sorrow  and  indigna- 
tion. Every  man  ought  to  read  it,  if  he  would  understand 
the  reasons  why  the  founders  of  this  country  left  their  na- 
tive land,  to  seek  an  asylum  in  the  wilderness,  and  if  he 
would  rightly  estimate  the  great  principles  of  religious  lib- 
erty which  Roger  Williams  maintained  and  defended. 

The  accession  of  James  I.  excited  the  hopes  of  the  Puri- 
tans. He  had  been  educated  iu  the  principles  of  the  Re- 
formation, and  had  stigmatized  the  service  of  the  Church 
of  England  as  "  an  evil  said  mass  in  English."*  He  had 
promised,  that  he  would  maintain  the  principles  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland  while  he  lived.  But  he  changed  his 
principles  or  his  policy,  after  he  ascended  the  throne  of 
England.  He  then  announced  the  true  royal  creed.  No 
Bishops,  no  King.  He  treated  the  Puritans  with  contempt 
and  rigor,  declaring  that  they  were  a  sect  "  unable  to  be 
suffered  in  any  well-governed  commonwealth. "f  Many  of 
the  Puritans,  finding  their  situation  intolerable  at  home, 
left  the  kingdom  for  the  continent,  or  turned  their  eyes  to 
America  for  a  refuge  from  persecution. 

In  the  midst  of  these  scenes,  Roger  Williams  was  born 
and  educated.  His  character  impelled  him  to  the  side  of 
the  Puritans.  His  political  principles  were  then,  it  is 
probable,  as  they  were  throughout  his  subsequent  life,  very 
liberal ;  and  were  entirely  repugnant  to  the  doctrines 
which  were  then  upheld  by  the  court  and  the  dignitaries 
of  the  church.  James  was  an  obstinate  and  arbitrary 
monarch,  who  inflexibly  maintained,  in  theory  and  often  in 
practice,  those  despotic  principles,  which  led  his  son  to  the 
scaffold,  and  expelled  James  II.  from  the  throne.  A  mind, 
like  that  of  Williams,  strong,  searching  and  fearless,  would 


J^feal,  vol.  ii.  p.  28.  t  Prince,  p.  107. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  31 

naturally  be  opposed  to  the  pretensions  and  policy  of  the 
King.*  His  patron,  Sir  Edward  Coke,  incurred  the  re- 
sentment of  James,  for  his  free  principles,  and  his  bold  vin- 
dication of  the  rights  of  the  people.  Charles  I.  was,  if 
possible,  more  arbitrary  than  his  father,  and  more  disposed 
to  trample  on  the  constitution,  and  on  the  rights  of  the 
people. 

The  tyranny  exercised  by  the  Bishops,  the  severe  perse- 
cution of  the  Puritans,  and  ike  arrogant  demand  of  abso- 
lute submission  to  the  National  Church,  were  still  more 
offensive  to  a  man  like  Mr.  Williams,  His  principles,  as 
he  afterwards  expounded  them,  by  his  life  and  in  his  writ- 
ings, claimed  for  all  men  a  perfect  liberty  of  conscience,  in 
reference  to  religion.  Such  principles,  allied  to  a  bold 
spirit,  must  have  brought  him  into  notice  at  such  a  crisis, 
and  must  have  attracted  upon  his  head  the  storm  of  perse- 
cution. Cotton,  Hooker,  and  many  other  ministers,  were 
silenced.  In  such  times,  Mr.  Williams  could  not  escape. 
If  he  was  indeed  admitted  to  a  living,  it  must  have  been 
through  the  indulgence  of  some  mild  Prelate,  or  by  the  in- 
fluence of  some  powerful  patron.  If  Cotton  and  Hooker 
were  not  spared,  Williams  could  not  be  suffered  to  preach, 
for  his  refusal  to  conform  seems  to  have  been  more  decided 
than  theirs,  t 

The  same  motives,  without  doubt,  which  induced  others 
to  forsake  their  native  land  for  America,  operated  on  the 
mind  of  Mr.  Williams.  On  the  1st  of  December,  1630, 
he  embarked  at  Bristol,  in  the  &hip  Lyon,  Captain  William 
Peirce.  His  wife  accompanied  him,  a  lady,  of  whose  pre- 
vious  history   we    are   more   ignorant  than  of  his  own.t 

•  Zvlr.  Williams  had  some  personal  intercourse  with  the  monarch, 
but  of  what  kind  does  not  appeir.  In  his  letter  to  Major  Mason,  he 
refers  to  ••  King  James,  whom  I  have  spoke  v/ith." 

f  "  Although  the  discusser  acknowledgeth  himself  unv*'orthy  to 
speak  for  God  to  Master  Cotton,  or  any.  yet  possibly  Master  Cotton 
may  call  to  mind,  that  the  discusser  (riding  with  himself  and  one 
other,  of  precious  memory,  Master  Hooker,  to  and  from  Sempring- 
ham)  presented  his  arguments  from  Scripture,  why  he  durst  not  join 
with  them  in  their  use  of  Common  Prayer/'  Bloody  Tenet  made 
more  Bloody,  p.  1*2. 

t  Mr.  William  Harris,  in  a  letter,  speaks  of  a  Mr,  Warnard,  as  a 
brother  of  Mrs.  Williams,  apparently  meaning  the  wife  of  K.oger 
Williams.     This  is  the  only  hint  which  the  author  has  found,  re- 


32  MEMOIR     OF 

There  is,  however,  satisfactory  evidence,  in  her  subsequent 
life,  of  her  virtues  as  a  wife  and  a  mother.  We  cannot 
doubt,  that  she  was  of  a  kindred  spirit  with  her  husband, 
whose  fortunes,  both  adverse  and  prosperous,  she  shared 
for  half  a  century. 

specting  the  family  of  Mrs.  Williams.  Her  name,  by  some  strange 
mistake,  is  stated,  in  the  records  of  the  church  at  Providence,  to 
have  been  Elizabeth,  instead  of  Mary,  her  real  name.  These  records 
led  Mr.  Benedict,  in  his  valuable  History,  (vol.  i.  p.  476)  into  the 
same  error.  On  his  authority,  one  of  the  descendants  of  Roger 
Williams,  now  living,  named  a  child  Elizabeth,  in  honor,  as  she 
meant  it,  of  her  venerable  maternal  ancestor. 


R  o  r.  E  R    w  r  L  L  I  A  M  s .  33 


CHAPTER     11. 


Historical  Sketch — View  of  the  condition  of  the  country  at  the  time 
of  Mr.  Wilhams'  arrival. 

The  first  settlement,  by  Europeans,  in  North  America, 
was  made  in  1585,  when  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  sent  a  fleet 
of  seven  ships  from  England  to  Virginia.  One  hundred 
and  seven  persons  were  landed  on  the  island  of  Roanoke, 
near  the  mouth  of  Albemarle  Sound,  in  the  present  State 
of  North  Carolina.  But  discouraged  by  the  want  of  pro- 
visions, and  probably  by  other  causes,  all  the  colonists  re- 
turned to  England  the  next  year.  Another,  and  more  suc- 
cessful, attempt  was  made  twenty  years  afterwards,  under 
the  authority  of  a  patent  from  King  James,  who  granted  all 
the  territory  in  North  America,  comprehended  between 
the  34th  and  45th  degrees  of  latitude,  to  be  equally  divided 
between  two  companies,  called,  respectively,  the  London 
and  the  Plymouth. 

In^  1607,  three  ships,  with  one  hundred  emigrants,  form- 
ed a  settlement  on  the  James  River,  in  Virginia,  and  called 
the  spot  Jamestown,  in  honor  of  the  King. 

In  the  same  year,  a  small  colony  made  a  settlement  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Kennebec  River,  in  the  present  State  of 
Maine  ;  but  the  loss  of  their  stores  by  fire,  and  the  severity 
of  the  winter,  induced  them  all  to  abaiidon  the  undertak- 
ing the  next  year,  and  return  to  England. 

In  1610,  a  settlement  was  commenced  at  Newfoundland, 
and  in  1614,  the  Dutch  built  a  fort  on  the  island  of  Man- 
hattan, where  the  city  of  New  York  now  stands,  and  held 
the  country  many  years,  under  a  grant  from  the  States' 
General,  by  the  name  of  the  New  Netherlands.* 

In  1620,  the  ever  memorable  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  at 
Plymouth  took  place.  The  colonists  were  a  company  of 
Puritans,  who  left  England  so  early  as  1608,  with  their 
pastor,  the  Rev.  John  Robinson,  and  settled  at  Leyden,  in 
Holland.  The  merciless  oppression  which  they  endured 
in  England  impelled  them  thus  to  abandon  their    native 

^Holmes'  Am.  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  14G. 

4 


34  MEMOIR     OF 

land.  They  enjoyed  protection  and  prosperity  in  Holland, 
but  they  were  not  satisfied  with  their  condition  and  pros- 
pects in  that  country,  which  a  foreign  language  and  lax 
morals  rendered  an  undesirable  home  for  them  and  their 
children.  They  accordingly  resolved  to  emigrate  to  Amer- 
ica. They  sailed  from  Plymouth  (England)  in  September, 
1620,  and  on  the  Hth  of  December  they  landed  at  the 
spot  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  Plymouth. 

The  settlement  of  Massachusetts  Bay  occurred  a  few 
years  after.  This  great  enterprise  was  conducted  under 
the  direction  of  the  Plymouth  Company,  who  obtained  a 
new  patent  from  King  James,  by  which  a  number  of  the 
highest  nobility  and  gentry  of  England,  their  associates 
and  successors,  were  constituted  "  the  Council  established 
at  Plymouth,  in  the  county  of  Devon,  for  the  planting, 
ruling,  ordering  and  governing  of  New  England,  in  Amer- 
ica." By  this  patent,  the  whole  territory  between  the  40th 
and  the  48th  degrees  of  north  latitude,  fi-om  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  was  granted  to  the  company.*  In 
1627-8,  the  Company  sold  to  several  gentlemen,  among 
whom  were  John  Endicott  and  John  Humfrey,  all  that  part 
of  New-England  which  lies  between  three- miles  north  of 
Merrimac  River  and  three  miles  south  of  Charles  River, 
across  the  whole  breadth  of  the  continent.  In  June,  1C28, 
Mr.  Endicott  sailed  from  England,  for  Naumkeag,  since 
called  Salem,  where  a  small  com.pany  of  emigrants  had 
fixed  their  residence  a  short  time  before.  Mr.  Endicott's 
first  letter  from  America  is  dated  September  13,  1628,  and 
his  arrival  is  considered  as  the  date  of  the  first  permanent 
settlement  of  Massachusetts  Proper. 


"  This  extensive  grant  inckidcd  a  considerabio  part  of  the  British 
colonies  in  North  /imerica.  the  whole  of  the  Nev/  England  States, 
and  of  New  York  ;  about  half  of  Pcnnsylva,nia ;  two  thirds  of  New 
Jersey  and  Ohio ;  a  half  of  Indiana  and  Illinois  ;  the  whole  of  Mich- 
igan. Huron,  and  the  whole  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
westvv^ard  of  them,  and  on  both  sides  of  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  and 
from  a  point  considerably  within  the  Mexican  dominions,  on  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean,  nearly  up  to  Nootka  Sountl.  This  enormous  grant 
shows  how  imperfectly  the  geography  of  the  country  was  known,  by 
James  and  his  counsellors.  The  Council  soon  found  their  under  tak- 
inof  an  unprofitable  speculation,  and  surrendered  their  patent  to 
the  Crown.  See  Hon.  E.  Everett's  Anniversary  Address  at  Charles- 
town,  June  28,  1830,  pp.  13,  31. 


11  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S  .  35 

The  patent  from  the  Council  of  Plymouth  gave  a  good 
right  to  the  soil,  (says  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  pp.  16,  17)  but 
no  powers  of  government.  A  royal  charter  was  necessary. 
This  passed  the  seals  March  4,  1628-9.  It  confirmed  the 
patent  of  the  Council  of  Plymouth,  and  created  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Company  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New- 
England,  a  body  politic  and  corporate.  By  this  charter, 
the  Company  were  empowered  to  elect,  annually,  forever, 
out  of  the  freemen  of  said  Company,  a  Governor,  a  Deputy 
Governor,  and  eighteen  assistants,  and  to  make  laws  not 
repugnant  to  the  lau^s  of  England. 

As  the  state  of  things  in  the  parent  country  daily  be- 
came more  distressing  to  the  friends  of  religion  and  liberty, 
an  emigration,  unparalleled  for  its  extent,  and  for  the 
character  of  the  emigrants,  was  projected.  A  considera- 
ble number  of  persons  of  great  respectability,  of  good  for- 
tune, and  of  consideration  in  society,  among  whom  were 
Winthrop,  Dudley,  Johnson,  and  Saltonstall,  resolved  to 
remove,  with  their  families  and  property,  to  Massachusetts, 
on  condition  that  the  charter  of  the  colony  and  the  seat  of 
its  government  should  be  transferred  to  America.  This  im- 
portant proposition  was  acceded  to,  and  on  the  28th  of 
April,  1630,  Winthrop,  who  had  been  elected  Governor, 
and  his  associates,  sailed  from  Yarmouth,*  in  a  fleet, 
which,  with  the  vessels  that  preceded  and  followed  them 
the  same  season,  amounted  in  the  whole  to  seventeen  sail,t 
with  above  fifteen  hundred  passengers. |  The  Arbella, 
with  Governor  Winthrop  on  board,  arrived  at  Salem  on  the 
12th  of  June,  and  the  other  vessels  arrived  soon  after. 
The  colonists  there  had  lost  eighty  of  their  number  by 
death  the  winter  previous.  Their  provisions  were  nearly 
consumed,  and  they  were  in  a  distressing  situation.  The 
arrival  of  the  new  emigrants  occasioned  great  joy  to  the 
sufferers,  and  revived  their  hopes. 

It  was  early  determined  that  Salem  was  not  the  proper 
position  for  the  capital.  The  Governor,  and  the  principal 
part  of  the  emigrants,  left  Salem  soon  after  their  arrival, 
and  resided   awhile   at  Charlestown.     Here  sickness  pre- 


^  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  5. 

i  Everett's  Address,  p.  27.  t  Hutchinson,  vol   i.  p.  24. 


36  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

vailed  among  them,  and  a  considerable  number  died.* 
They  were  distressed  by  the  want  of  fresh  water.  Many  of 
them  accordingly  abandoned  Charlestown,  and  settled  at 
Watertown  and  Dorchester,  while  a  still  larger  number  re- 
moved, in  September,  to  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  Boston.  The  peninsula  was  then 
inhabited  by  only  one  white  man,  the  Rev.  William  Black- 
stone. t  It  was  called  by  the  Indians  Shawmut,  and  by 
the  neighboring  settlers,  Trimountain,  the  former  name 
signifying  the  abundance  and  sweetness  of  its  waters,  the 
latter  the  peculiar  character  of  its  hills. J  It  was  called 
Boston  by  a  vote  of  the  Court,  September  7,  in  well  de- 
served honor  of  the  Rev.  John  Cotton,  who  had  been  a 
minister  of  Boston,  in  England,  and  whose  arrival  in 
America  was  earnestly  expected. 

The  sufferings  of  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  metropolis 
were  very  great.  Sickness  swept  many  of  them  into  the 
grave.  The  weather  during  the  winter  was  extremely  se- 
vere, and  provisions  were  so  scarce,  that  the  inhabitants 
were  in  imminent  peril  of  starvation. §     At  this    critical 


*  It  is  stated,  that  not  less  than  two  hundred  persons  died,  from  the 
time  the  company  sailed  from  England,  in  April,  up  to  the  Decem- 
ber following.     Everett's  Address,  p.  50. 

t  This  gentleman  came  from  England.  He  claimed  the  whole 
peninsula  of  Boston,  because  he  was  the  first  white  man  who  slept 
there.  He  hospitably  invited  Gov.  Winthrop  and  his  friends  to  re- 
move thither,  on  account  of  a  fine  spring  of  water  there.  He  soon 
left  Boston,  alleging  that  he  left  England  because  he  did  not  like 
the  Lords  Bishops,  but  he  could  not  join  with  the  colonists,  because 
he  did  not  like  the  Lords  Brethren.  His  rights  as  the  first  occupant 
were  acknowledged,  and  thirty  pounds  were  paid  to  him  in  1634. 
He  removed  to  a  spot  in  the  present  town  of  Cumberland,  (R.  L) 
about  six  miles  from  Providence,  and  the  river  which  flows  near 
now  bears  his  name.  He  lived  to  an  old  age,  and  occasionally 
preached  at  Providence  and  other  places.  Tradition  says,  that  he 
sometimes  secured  the  attention  of  his  hearers  by  a  skilful  distribu- 
tion of  apples.  His  orchard  flourished  long  after  his  death,  and 
some  of  the  trees  are.  it  is  said,  yet  standing. 

t  President  Quincy 's  His.  Dis.  Sept.  17,  1830,  p.  19. 

§  It  may  be  profitable  to  the  men  of'  this  generation  to  read  the 
following  account,  given  by  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  27. 

'•  The  weather  held  tolerable  until  the  24th  of  December,  but  the 
cold  then  came  on  with  violence.  Such  a  Christmas  eve  they  had 
never  seen  before.  From  that  time  to  the  10th  of  February  their 
chief  care   was  to  keep  themselves  warm,  and   as  comfortable,  in 


ROGER    WILLIAMS. 


37 


juncture,  the  ship  Lyon,  in  which  Roger  Williams  had 
embarked,  arrived,  on  the  5th  of  February,  1630-1.  Gov- 
ernor Winthrop  (vol.  i.  pp.  41,  42)  thus  records  the  arrival 
of  this  vessel : 

**  Feb.  5.  The  ship  Lyon,*  Mr.  William  Peirce,  master, 
arrived  at  Nantasket.  She  brought  Mr.  Williams,  a  godly 
minister,!  with  his  wife,  Mr.  Throgmorton,  Perkins,  Ong, 
and  others,  with  their  wives  and  children,  about  twenty 
passengers,  and  about  two  hundred  tons  of  goods.  She  set 
sail  from  Bristol,  December  1.  She  had  a  very  tempestuous 
passage,  yet  through  God's  mercy^  all  her  people  came 
safe,  except  Way  his  son,  who  fell  from  the  spritsail  yard 
in  a  tempest,  and  could  not  be  recovered,  though  he  kept 
in  sight  near  a  quarter  of  an  hour;  her  goods  also  came  all 
in  good  condition." 

The  strong  contrast  between  the  situation  of  the  present 
inhabitants  of  the  metropolis,  and  that  of  the  little  company 
of  suffering  exiles  in  1630,  forces  itself  on  our  minds. 
They  were  few  in  number.  They  had  no  suitable  dwell- 
other  respects,  as  their  scant  provisions  would  permit.  The  poorer 
sort  were  much  exposed,  lying  in  tents  and  miserable  hovels,  and 
many  died  of  the  scurvy  and  other  distempers.  They  were  so  short 
of  provisions,  that  many  were  obliged  to  live  upon  clams,  muscles, 
and  other  shell  fish,  with  ground  nuts  and  acorns  instead  of  bread. 
One  that  came  to  the  Governor's  house,  to  complain  of  his  suffer- 
ings, was  prevented,  being  informed  that  even  there  the  last  batch 
was  in  the  oven.  Some  instances  are  mentioned  of  great  calmness 
and  resignation  in  this  distress.  A  man  who  had  asked  his  neighbor 
to  a  dish  of  clams,  after  dinner  returned  thanks  to  God,  who  had 
given  them  to  suck  of  the  abundance  of  the  seas,  and  of  treasures 
hid  in  the  sands.  They  had  appointed  the  2'2d  of  February  for  a 
fast;  but  on  the  5th,  to  their  great  joy,  the  ship  Lyon,  Capt.  Peirce, 
one  of  tiie  last  year's  fleet,  returned,  laden  with  previsions,  from 
England,  which  were  distributed  according  to  the  necessities  of  the 
people.     They  turned  their  fast  into  a  thanksgiving." 

*  This  was  a  regular  colony  ship.  Her  arrival  from  England,  with 
emigrants,  supplies,  &c.  is  often  noted  in  the  Journal.  The  follow- 
ing November,  on  the  2d,  she  arrived  with  the  Governor's  Avife,  the 
famous  John  Elliot,  and  others.  But,  unfortunately,  she  was  cast 
away  on  the  2d  of  November,  1633,  upon  a  shoal  off  the  coast  of 
Virginia.  G. 

t  In  the  first  edition  this  was  printed  *'m«n."  Mr.  Savage,  in  a 
note,  says  :  ''  In  the  original  MS.  this  word  has  been  tampered  with, 
perhaps  by  some  zealot,  yet  it  appears  clearly  enough  to  be  Win- 
throp's  usual  abbreviation  for  that  which  is  restored  in  the  text,  and 
Prince  read  it  as  I  do." 

4* 


SB  MEMOIR     or 

iiigs  to  shelter  them  from  the  rigors  of  winter,  then  more 
severe,  perhaps,  than  any  which  we  now  experience.  They 
were  almost  without  food.  Disease  was  among  them,  and 
several  of  their  number  sunk  into  the  grave,  whose  lives 
might  doubtless  have  been  preserved,  had  they  been  fur- 
nished with  suitable  shelter,  food  and  medicine.  When 
they  looked  around  them,  all  was  dreary  and  melancholy. 
"  Where  nov/  exists  a  dense  and  aggregated  mass  of  living 
beings  and  material  things,  amid  all  the  accommodations 
of  life,  the  splendors  of  wealth,  the  delights  of  taste,  and 
whatever  can  gratify  the  cultivated  intellect,  there  were 
then  only  a  few  hills,  which,  when  the  ocean  receded, 
were  intersected  by  wide  marshes,  and  when  its  tide  re- 
turned, appeared  a  group  of  lofty  islands,  abruptly  rising 
from  the  surrounding  waters.  Thick  forests  concealed 
the  neighboring  hills,  and  the  deep  silence  of  nature  was 
broken  only  by  the  voice  of  the  wild  beast  or  the  bird,  and 
the  war  whoop  of  the  savage."* 

How  different  the  situation  of  the  present  inhabitants. 
That  little  company  has  swelled  to  more  than  sixty  thou- 
sand. Those  forests,  which  then  covered  the  hills  and  val- 
lies,  are  gone ;  the  ocean  has  been  driven  back  from  much 
of  the  space  over  which  it  then  rolled ;  and  now,  where 
stood  the  few  tents  and  cabins  of  the  first  settlers,  have 
sprung  up,  over  the  whole  peninsula,  sumptuous  structures 
and  spacious  temples,  comfortable  dwellings,  ample  ware- 
houses, and  every  thing  which  can  minister  to  the  happi- 
ness of  men.  The  poorest  of  its  citizens  is  better  sheltered 
and  better  fed,  than  some  of  the  richest  fumilies  among  the 
first  inhabitants.  Let  them  give  devout  thanks  to  God, 
that  He  has  reserved  for  them  a  happier  lot  than  that  of 
their  fathers.  Let  them,  amid  their  profusion  of  blessings, 
praise  the  Lord,  who  has  done  so  great  things  for  their 
city,  and  its  successive  generations.  Let  them,  above  all, 
hold  fast  those  great  truths,  for  which  the  founders  sacri- 
ficed every  thing  dear  to  them  on  earth. 

As  the  colonists  came  to  this  country  to  enjoy  the  privi- 
lege of  worshipping  God  according  to  their  conceptions  of 
His  will,  it  w  as,  of  course,  among  their  first  objects  to  form 
churches,  and  make  provision  for  the  regular  worship  of 
the  Most  High. 

*  Quincy's  Hist.  Dis.  1830,  p.  20. 


UOGE 11     WILLIAMS,  39 

The  settlers  at  Plymouth  were  organized  as  a  church 
before  they  left  Holland,  and  as  such  they  landed  on  our 
shores.  This  church  was  formed  on  the  principle  of  en- 
tire independence  on  all  human  authority.  Its  members 
belonged  to  that  class  of  the  Non-Conformists,  who  had 
separated  entirely  from  the  Church  of  England,  and  adopt- 
ed a  form  of  church  polity  which  they  deemed  more  con- 
sistent with  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  separate  independence  of  each  church  on  all  others; 
the  necessity  of  true  piety  as  a  qualification  for  member- 
ship ;  the  right  of  each  church  to  elect  its  own  officers ; 
the  rejection  of  all  officers  except  pastors  or  elders,  and 
deacons,  and  the  entire  equality  of  all  pastors  and  elders, 
in  respect  to  power  and  privileges,  were  among  the  princi- 
ples adopted  by  this  excellent  body  of  Christians.  They 
are  the  principles  which  the  Scriptures  teach,  and  it  would 
have  been  happy  for  the  cause  of  truth,  if  they  had  been 
held  fast,  without  any.  corrupt  mixture,  by  all  the  churches 
which  professed  to  receive  them.  Another  principle  adopt- 
ed by  the  church  of  Plymouth  was,  that  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sures are  wholly  spiritual,  and  not  to  be  accompanied  with 
temporal  penalties.  In  this  respect,  the  church  of  Ply- 
mouth were  in  advance  of  their  brethren  in  Massachusetts, 
and  the  history  of  the  Plymouth  colony  is  honorably  distin- 
guished by  a  tolerant  spirit,  which  contributed  not  less  to 
her  peace  and  prosperity,  than  to  her  true  fame. 

The  first  settlers  at  Salem,  Boston,  and  other  towns  in 
Massachusetts  Bay,  belonged,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
other  class  of  Non-Conformists,  who  did  not,  while  in 
England,  separate  wholly  from  the  Established  Church, 
though  they  opposed  her  corruptions.  They  desired  only  a 
further  reform  of  the  Church  herseli,  and  retained  their 
membership,  some  of  them  conforming,  though  reluctantly, 
to  her  ceremonies,  to  avoid  persecution,  and  others  refusing 
such  a  conformity-,  protected  awhile  by  the  indulgence  of 
some  mild  Prelates,  or  by  the  friendship  of  powerful  lay- 
men. When,  at  length,  despairing  of  the  desired  reform, 
and  weary  of  persecution,  they  embarked  for  America, 
they  came  as  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  Win- 
throp  and  his  associates,  while  on  board  the  fleet  at  Yar- 
mouth, addressed  a  farewell  letter  to  the  "rest  of  their 
brethren   in   and  of  the  Church  of  England/'  which  is  as 


40  M  £  iM  O  1  R     o  F 

beautiful  in  diction  as  it  is  admirable  for  its  affectionate 
pathos.  They  say,  "  We  desire  you  would  be  pleased  to 
take  notice  of  the  principals  and  body  of  our  company,  as 
those  who  esteem  it  our  honor  to  call  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, from  whence  we  arise,  our  dear  mother,  and  cannot 
part  from  our  native  country,  where  she  specially  resideth, 
without  much  sadness  of  heart  and  many  tears  in  our  eyes ; 
ever  acknowledgingf,  that  such  hope  and  part  as  we  have 
obtained  in  the  common  salvation,  we  have  received  in 
her  bosom,  and  sucked  it  from  her  breasts.  We  leave  it 
not,  therefore,  as  loathing  that  milk,  wherewith  we  were 
nourished,  but  blessing  God  for  the  parentage  and  ed- 
ucation, as  members  of  the  same  body,  shall  always  rejoice 
in  her  good,  and  unfeignedly  grieve  for  any  sorrow  that 
shall  ever  betide  her ;  and,  while  we  have  breath,  sincerely 
desire  and  endeavor  the  continuance  and  abundance  of 
her  welfare,  with  the  enlargement  of  her  bounds  in  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  Jesus."  * 

There  was,  unquestionably,  an  entire  sincerity  in  these 
expressions  of  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England. 
There  was,  as  they  judged,  no  inconsistency  in  their  sub- 
sequent conduct,  in  forming  churches,  from  which  Episco- 
pacy, and  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  parent  Church,  were 
excluded.  Their  love  for  that  Church  was  founded  on  her 
doctrines,  not  on  her  ceremonies.  They  recognised  in 
her  articles  the  genuine  faith,  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 
Her  ceremonies  they  regarded  as  unseemly  appendages, 
the  relics  of  Popish  superstition,  of  which  they  desired  to 
divest  her.  They  loved  the  inward  spirit,  not  the  outward 
form.  They  did  reverence  to  the  majestic  soul,  while 
they  looked  with  sorrow  on  her  fantastic  attire.  They 
would  have  remained  in  her  bosom,  and  submitted  to  much 
which  they  deemed  undesirable,  if  she  would  have  per- 
mitted them  to  reject  what  they  considered  as  positively 
unlawful  and  wrong.  But  as  she  left  them  no  alternative 
but  unconditional  submission,  or  exile,  they  departed  for 
America ;  and  when  they  came  to  form  churches  here, 
they  endeavored  to  incorporate  that  soul  in  a  body  befitting 
her  dignity.  The  American  church  was,  in  their  view, 
the  Church  of  England,  redeemed   and   regenerated,  hold- 

*  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  Appendix,  No.  1. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  41 

ing  to  her  former  self  a  similar  relation  to  that  which  the 
just  man  made  perfect  bears  to  the  saint  who  is  still  on 
earth,  and  encumbered  with  his  diseased  and  mortal  body. 

A  church  was  formed  at  Salem,  on  the  6th  of  August, 
1629,  when  thirty  persons  entered  into  a  covenant  in  writ- 
ing, and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Skelton  was  ordained,  or  instituted, 
as  the  pastor,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Higginson  as  the  teacher  ; 
these  offices  beino;  considered  as  distinct,  and  both  beinof 
deemed  essential  to  the  welfare  of  a  church.  The 
church  thus  formed  was  entirely  independent.  The  Gov- 
ernor of  Plymouth,  and  other  members  of  the  church  there, 
who  had  been  invited  to  attend  the  ceremony,  were  not 
permitted  to  give  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  the  new 
church,  till  an  explicit  declaration  had  been  made,  that 
this  service  was  not  meant  to  indicate  any  right  of  inter- 
ference or  control.  The  pastor  and  teacher  were  inducted 
into  office  by  the  vote  of  the  church,  and  by  the  imposition 
of  the  hands  of  the  ruling  elder,  as  the  organ  of  the  church. 
Thus  careful  were  this  body  to  exclude,  at  the  outset,  all 
authority  but  that  of  the  Head  of  the  Church.  Several  of 
the  inhabitants,  among  whom  Messrs.  John  and  Samuel 
Brown  were  the  principal  men,  opposed  the  new  church, 
because  the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England  was  re- 
jected.* They  accordingly  formed  another  society,  in 
which  the  book  of  common  prayer  was  read.  The  schism 
was  speedily  remedied,  by  a  measure  which  was  much 
more  energetic  than  just.  Mr.  John  Brown  and  his  bro- 
ther, the  leaders,  were  sent  to  England,  and  their  followers 
quietly  relinquished  their  opposition. 

A  church  was  formed  at  Charlestown,  July  30,  1630, 
by  Governor  Winthrop  and  a  number  of  other  persons,  who 
signed  a  covenant,  in  which  they  simply  promised  to  ''walk 

*  The  reply  of  the  ministers  of  the  church  to  this  objection  is  worthy 
of  notice,  as  confirminff  the  views  which  have  been  stated  re- 
specting their  feelings  toward  the  Church  of  England.  '•  They  did 
not  (they  declared)  separate  from  the  Church  of  England,  nor  from 
the  ordinances  of  God  there,  but  only  from  the  corruptions  and  dis- 
orders of  that  Church ;  that  they  came  away  from  the  common 
prayer  and  ceremonies,  and  had  suffered  much  for  their  non-con- 
formity in  their  native  land,  and  therefore,  being  in  a  place  where 
they  might  have  their  liberty,  they  neither  could  nor  would  use 
them,  inasmuch  as  they  judged  the  imposition  of  these  things  to  be 
a  violation  of  the  worship  of  God."     Magnalia,  b.  i.  ch.  iv.  §  8. 


4'2  MEMOIR     OF 

in  all  our  ways  accordino;  to  the  rule  of  the  Gospel,  and  in 
all  sincere  conformity  to  his  holy  ordinances,  and  in  mutual 
love  and  respect  to  each  other,  so  near  as  God  shall  give 
us  grace."*  On  the  27th  of  August,  the  Rev.  John  Wil- 
son was  elected  teacher.  "  We  used  imposition  of  hands," 
says  Governor  W  inthrop,  "  but  with  this  protestation  by 
all,  that  it  was  only  as  a  sign  of  election  and  confirmation, 
not  of  any  intent  that  Mr.  Wilson  should  renounce  his 
ministry  he  received  in  England. "f  Thus  careful  were 
they  to  guard  the  independence  of  the  church,  while  they 
preserved  due  respect  for  the  Church  of  England,  whose 
ministers,  so  far  as  they  were  pastors  and  teachers,  they 
acknowledged  and  honored. 

When  the  Governor  and  the  greater  portion  of  the  colo- 
nists removed  to  Boston,  the  church,  with  the  minister, 
removed  thither.  It  remained  without  a  house  for  public 
worship  till  August,  1632,  when  a  building  was  com- 
menced,! on  the  south  side  of  State  street,  opposite  the 
spot  where  the  Branch  Bank  now  stands.  It  was  a  hum- 
ble structure,  with  a  thatched  roof  and  mud  walls. §  Per- 
haps, however,  the  metropolis  has  never  seen  a  more  de- 
vout congregation  than  that  which  was  accustomed  to 
assemble  there.  It  well  illustrates  the  piety  of  the  found- 
ers, and  their  high  regard  for  the  ministry,  that  at  the  first 
Court  of  Assistants,  held  on  board  the  Arbella,  at  Charles- 
town,  August  23,  1630,  the  first  question  propounded  was, 
Hoiv  shall  the  ministers  be  maintained  1  It  was  ordered, 
that  houses  be  built  for  them  with  convenient  speed,  at  the 
public  charge,  and  their  salaries  were  established.  These 
were  sufficiently  moderate.  Mr.  Wilson  was  allowed  twen- 
ty pounds  per  annum,  till  his  wife  should  arrive,  and  Mr. 
Phillips,  the  minister  of  Watertown,  was  to  receive  thirty 
pounds.  1 1 

The  ecclesiastical  polity,  now  commenced,  was  after- 
wards moulded  into  a  more  regular  and  permanent  form, 
by  the  personal  influence  of  Mr.  Cotton,  and  by  the  author- 
ity of  the  platform  adopted  in  1648.  The  great  principles 
which  were  established  were  these  :    each  church  is   inde- 


^  Snow's  History  of  Boston,  p.  30. 

i  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  32.  X  Ibid,  vol.  i.  p.  87. 

§  Snow's  Hist,  of  Boston,  p.  42.       [j  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p  30.  note. 


ROG  KR    \V  I  LL!  AMS.  43 

pendent,  and  possesses  the  sole  power  of  governing  itself, 
according  to  the  Scriptures ;  piety  and  a  holy  life  are  the 
qualifications  for  church  membership ;  the  officers  of  a 
church  are  pastors,  teachers,  ruling  elders  and  deacons, 
and  are  to  be  chosen  by  the  church  itself;  the  ordination  of 
ministers  is  to  be  performed  with  imposition  of  hands,  by 
the  ministers  of  the  neighboring  churches.  These  and 
other  principles,  which,  with  some  exceptions,  are  still  held 
by  the  Independent,  Congregational  and  Baptist  churches, 
were  joined,  with  another  article,  which  was  the  source  of 
manifold  mischiefs  to  the  colony.  It  is  thus  expressed,  in 
the  w^ords  of  Hubbard,  (540) ;  "Church  government  and 
civil  government  may  very  well  stand  together,  it  being  the 
duty  of  the  magistrate  to  take  care  of  matters  of  religion, 
and  to  improve  his  civil  authority  for  observing  the  duties 
commanded  in  the  first  as  well  as  in  the  second  table ; 
seeing  the  end  of  their  office  is  not  only  the  quiet  and 
peaceable  life  of  the  subject  in  matters  of  righteousness  and 
honesty,  but  also  in  matters  of  godliness."  1  Tim.  ii.  1,2. 
The  ecclesiastical  polity  being  adjusted,  the  civil  govern- 
ment was  made  to  conform  to  it.*  To  the  excellent  found- 
ers, religion  was  the  most  precious  of  all  interests,  and 
civil  government  was,  in  their  view,  useful,  no  further  than 
it  was  necessary  for  the  good  order  of  the  community,  and 
the  security  of  their  religious  privileges.  Having  escaped 
from  the  grasp  of  the  civil  power  in  England,  they  resolved, 
that  in  the  new  state  to  be  formed  here,  the  church  should 
hold  the  first  place.  They  wished  to  erect  here  a  commu- 
nity, which  should  be  itself  a  church,  governed  by  the  laws 
of  Jesus  Christ,  flourishing  in  the  peace  and  beauty  of 
holiness,  and  realizing  the  glorious  visions  of  the  prophets. 
It  was  a  noble  conception,  a  sublime  purpose,  of  which 
none  but  pure  hearted  men  would  have  been  capable.  That 
they  failed  in  accomplishing  all  their  plans,  was  the  natural 
result  of  human  corruption  ;  but  they  succeeded  in  form- 
ing a  community,  more  moral,  more  easily  governed,  better 
educated,  more  thoroughly  under  the  control  of  religious 
principles,  and  more  truly  free,  than  the  world  had  then 
seen.  At  the  General  Court,  held  so  early  as  May  18, 
1631,  it  was  ordered,  that  no  person  should  be  admitted  to 

*  Extract  from  a  letter  of  P»Ir.  Cotton.     Hutchinson,  Appendix  iii. 


44  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

the  privileges  of  a  freeman,  unless  he  was  a  member  of 
some  church  in  the  colony.  This  law  was,  no  doubt,  un- 
just, and  the  colony  was  afterwards  forced  to  repeal  it.  It 
was,  also,  injurious  to  the  interests  of  religion,  for  it  made 
church  membership  an  object  of  earnest  desire,  for  political 
purposes,  and  thus  introduced  men  without  piety  into  the 
church.  It  led  to  the  adoption,  to  some  extent,  of  the 
ruinous  principle,  that  piety  is  not  necessary  to  church 
membership,  and  it  was  one  of  the  causes  of  that  unhappy 
strife,  which  issued  in  the  introduction  of  the  halfway 
covenant.*  But  the  law  is  characteristic  of  the  founders, 
and  proves  their  determination  to  keep  the  state  subordi- 
nate to  the  church.  They  also  adopted,  as  the  basis  of 
their  civil  code,  the  laws  of  Moses,  so  far  as  they  were  of  a 
moral  nature,  though,  as  Roger  Williams  remarked,  "they 
extended  their  moral  equity  to  so  many  particulars  as  to 
take  in  the  whole  judicial  law."  They  punished  crimes, 
not  by  the  laws  of  England,  but  by  those  of  Moses.  Idol- 
atry, blasphemy,  man  stealing,  adultery,  and  some  other 
crimes,  not  punishable  with  death  by  the  laws  of  the  parent 
country,  were  made  capital.  Every  inhabitant  was  com- 
pelled to  contribute,  in  proportion  to  his  ability,  to  the  sup- 
port of  religion.  This  adoption  of  the  Mosaic  code,  and  a 
constant  disposition  to  seek  for  precedents  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, will  account  for  many  of  the  measures  which  have 
been  attributed  to  the  bigotry  of  our  fathers. 

*See  Dr.  Wisner's  valuable  Historical  Discourses.  Moy  9  and  16, 
1830. 


R  O  G  E  R    W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  45 


CHAPTER    III. 


Mr.  Williams  refuses  to  unite  vdth  the  Boston  church — is  invited  to 
Salem — interference  of  the  General  Court — removes  to  Plymouth 
— the  Indians — difficulties  at  Plymouth — birth  of  Mr.  Williams' 
eldest  child. 

On  the  5th  of  February,  1630-1,*  as  we  have  already 
stated,  Mr.  Williams  arrived  in  America,  where  he  was  to 
become  one  of  the  founders  of  a  great  nation.  As  a 
minister  of  the  Gospel,  he  would  naturally  seek,  without 
delay,  for  an  opportunity  to  fulfil  his  office.  He  was,  it  is 
probable,  without  property,  and  a  sense  of  duty  would  con- 
cur with  the  dictates  of  prudence,  to  urge  him  to  inquire 
for  some  situation  where  he  might  be  useful,  while  he  ob- 
tained a  maintenance.  The  church  in  Boston  were  sup- 
plied with  a  pastor,  and  the  great  Cotton  was  expected  to 
become  their  teacher.  There  was,  however,  another  diffi- 
culty to  which  we  shall  soon  have  occasion  to  recur. 

In  a  few  weeks  after  Mr.  Williams'  arrival,  he  was  invited 
by  the  church  at  Salem  to  become  an  assistant  to  Mr. 
Skelton,  as  teacher,  in  the  place  of  the  accomplished  Hig- 
ginson,  who  died  a  few  months  before.  Mr.  W^illiams 
complied  with  the  invitation,  and  commenced  his  ministry 
in  that  town.  But  the  civil  authority  speedily  interfered,  in 
accordance  with  the  principle  afterwards  established  in  the 
platform,  that  "  if  any  church,  one  or  more,  shall  grow 
schismatical,  rending  itself  from  the  communion  of 
other  churches,  or  shall  walk  incorrigibly  and  obstinately  in 
any  corrupt  way  of  their  own,  contrary  to  the  rule  of  the 
word;  in  such  case,  the  magistrate  is  to  put  forth  his 
coercive  power,  as  the  matter  shall  require."'!" 

On  the  12th  of  April,  says  Governor  Winthrop  (vol.  i.  p. 
53)  "  at  a  Court,  holden  at  Boston,  (upon  information  to 
the  Governor,  that  they  of  Salem  had  called  Mr.  Williams 
to  the  office  of  teacher,)  a  letter  was  written  from  the  Court 

*  Mr.  Backus,  and  some  other  writers,  have  this  date  1631.  either  by 
mistake,  or  by  neglecting-  the  difference  between  the  old  and  the  new 
style.  Some  confusion  has  thus  been  introduced  into  the  accounts 
of  Mr.  Williams. 

t  Magnalia,  b.  v.  ch.  17. 

5 


46  MEMOIR    OF 

to  Mr.  Endicott  to  this  effect  :  That  whereas  Mr.  Williams 
had  refused  to  join  with  the  congregation  at  Boston,  because 
they  would  not  make  a  public  declaration  of  their  repent- 
ance for  having  communion  with  the  churches  of  England, 
while  they  lived  there ;  and  besides,  had  declared  his 
opinion  that  the  magistrate  might  not  punish  a  breach  of 
the  Sabbath,  nor  any  other  offence,  as  it  was  a  breach  of 
the  first  table  ;  therefore  they  marvelled  they  would  choose 
him  without  advising  with  the  Council ;  and  withal  desiring 
him  that  they  would  forbear  to  proceed  till  they  had  confer- 
red about  it." 

The  first  of  these  charges  is  made  in  very  indefinite 
terms.*  It  does  not  appear,  what  was  the  degree  of 
conformity  which  the  members  of  the  church  had  practised 
in  England,  nor  what  degree  of  criminality  was,  in  the 
estimation  of  Mr.  Williams,  attributable  to  their  conduct. 
It  is  well  known,  that  some  of  the  Puritans  did  maintain, 
till  they  left  England,  a  connection  with  the  church,  from 
whose  ritual  they  secretly  dissented,  and  whose  corruptions 
they  deeply  deplored.  We  have  already  stated,  that 
Governor  Winthrop  and  his  associates  had  not  separated 
from  the  church  Vv^hen  they  left  England,  but  acknowledged 
themselves,  at  the  moment  of  their  departure,  as  among  her 
children.  Many  good  men  considered  this  conformity  as  a 
pusillanimous  and  sinful  connivance  at  evil,  tending  to 
sanction  and  perpetuate  the  corruptions  of  the  church. 
Mr.  Cotton  himself,  being  forced,  by  the  intolerance  of  the 
hierarchy,  either  to  submit  to  their  ritual,  or  to  suffer  the 
vengeance  of  the  High  Commission  Court,  resolved  to 
leave  England.  He  travelled  in  disguise  to  London. 
"  Here,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  (Magnalia,  b.  iii.  chap.  1. 
§  18)  "  the  Lord  had  a  work  for  him  to  do,  which  he  little 
thought  of  Some  reverend  and  renowned  ministers  of  our 
Lord  in  that  great  city,  who  yet  had  not  seen  sufiicient 
reason  to  expose  themselves  unto  persecution  for  the  sake 
of  non-conformity,  but  looked  upon  the  imposed  ceremo- 
nies as  indifferent  and  sufferable  trifles,  and  weighed  not  the 
aspect  of  the  second  commandment  upon  all  the  parts  and 


*  Emerson  in  his  History  of  the  First  Church  is  not  more  exphcit 
He  says.  (p.  13)  '•  It  has  been  said  of  this  man.  that  he  refused  com- 
munion." &c. 


R  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  47 

means  of  instituted  worship,  took  this  opportunity  for  a 
conference  with  Mr.  Cotton ;  being  persuaded,  that  since 
he  was  no  passionate,  but  a  very  judicious  man,  they  should 
prevail  with  him  rather  to  conform,  than  to  leave  his  work 
and  his  land.  Upon  the  motion  of  a  conference,  Mr. 
Cotton  most  readily  yielded;  and  first,  all  their  arguments 
for  conformity,  together  with  Mr.  Byfield's,  Mr.  Whately's, 
and  Mr.  Sprint's,  were  produced,  all  of  which  Mr.  Cotton 
answered,  unto  their  wonderful  satisfaction.  Then  he 
gave  his  arguments  for  his  non-conformity,  and  the  reasons 
why  he  must  rather  forego  his  ministry,  or,  at  least,  his 
country,  than  wound  his  conscience  with  unlawful  com- 
pliance ;  the  issue  whereof  was,  that  instead  of  bringing 
Mr.  Cotton  back  to  what  he  had  now  forsaken,  he  brought 
them  off  altogether  from  what  they  had  hitherto  practised. 
Every  one  of  those  eminent  persons,  Dr.  Goodwin,  Mr. 
Nye,  and  Mr.  Davenport,  now  became  all  that  he  was,  and 
at  last  left  the  kingdom  for  their  being  so." 

If,  then,  these  distinguished  ministers  had  practised  a 
conformity  which  Mr.  Cotton  esteemed  "  unlawful,"  and 
which  Cotton  Mather  seems  to  have  considered  as  a  breach 
of  the  second  commandment,  it  is  probable,  that  many 
private  Christians  had  done  the  same.  The  members  of 
the  Boston  church  had  undoubtedly  shared  in  these  "  com- 
pliances." But  if  Mr.  Cotton  could  not  conform,  without 
wounding  his  conscience,  he  must  have  thought  the  prac- 
tice criminal.  There  is  no  question,  that  Mr.  Williams 
was  of  the  same  opinion  ;  and  as  his  temper  was  more 
ardent  and  bold  than  that  of  Mr,  Cotton,  his  opposition  to 
what  he  must  have  regarded  as  highly  censurable,  would 
naturally  be  strong  and  decided.  It  is  not  very  surprising, 
therefore,  if,  on  his  arrival  in  America,  with  a  vivid  sense 
of  recent  wrong  from  the  persecuting  church,  he  was  disin- 
clined to  a  cordial  union  with  those  who  had,  in  any  mea- 
sure, yielded  to  her  despotic  pretensions,  and  sanctioned,  by 
any  acts  of  compliance,  her  unscriptural  requirements. 
We  are  not  told,  precisely,  in  what  terms,  and  to  what 
extent,  he  wished  the  members  of  the  Boston  church  to 
express  their  repentance  for  their  conduct.  He,  perhaps, 
allowed  his  feelings  to  bias  his  judgment  in  this  case  ,  and 
to  make  him  forget  his  own  principles  of  liberty  of  con- 
science ;   but  the    facts  to  which  we  have  alluded  show^ 


48  MEMOIROP 

that  his  objections  were  not  altogether  frivolous,  nor  his 
conduct  the  offspring  of  bigotry  and  caprice.  It  appears, 
that  his  feelings  were  afterwards  allayed ;  and  while  at 
Plymouth,  the  next  year,  he  communed  with  Governor 
Winthrop  and  other  gentlemen  from  Boston.* 

The  other  allegation,  made  in  the  extract  from  Winthrop, 
that  Mr.  Williams  denied  the  power  of  the  civil  magistrate 
to  punish  men  for  violations  of  the  first  table  of  the  law,t 
that  is,  in  other  words,  for  the  neglect,  or  the  erroneous  per- 
formance, of  their  duties  to  God,  is  one,  which,  at  this  day, 
needs  little  discussion.  Time  has  wrought  out  a  triumph- 
ant vindication  of  this  great  principle.  The  doctrine,  that 
man  is  accountable  to  his  Maker  alone  for  his  religious 
opinions  and  practices,  and  is  entitled  to  an  unrestrained 
liberty  to  maintain  and  enjoy  them,  provided  that  he  does 
not  interfere  with  the  rights  of  others,  and  with  the  civil 
peace  of  society,  has  won  for  itself,  in  this  country,  at  least, 
a  place  among  the  undisputed  principles  of  thought  and 
action.  Ample  experience  has  demonstrated,  even  in 
New-England,  the  m.anifold  evils  which  spring  from  intrust- 
ing to  civil  rulers  the  power  to  legislate  for  the  church,  to 
control  the  conscience,  and  to  regulate  the  intercourse 
between  men  and  his  Creator.  We  shall  have  occasion  to 
recur  to  this  topic.  It  is  sufficient  now  to  say,  that  Mr. 
Williams  stood  on  the  firm  ground  of  truth  and  of  enlight- 
ened policy,  when  he  denied  to  the  civil  magistrate  the 
right  to  interfere  with  the  consciences  of  men.|  There  is 
no  allegation,  that  he  failed,  on  this  occasion,  in  due  re- 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  91. 

t  The  moral  law  was  considered  as  divided  into  two  tables,  the 
first  table  containing  the  first  four  commandments,  which  relate  to 
our  duties  towards  God  ;  and  the  second  table,  containing  the  other 
six  commandments,  which  prescribe  certain  duties  towards  men. 

+  The  note  of  Mr.  Savage,  in  his  edition  of  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  53, 
deserves  to  be  quoted  : 

"  All,  who  are  iriclmed  to  separate  that  connection  of  secular 
concerns  with  the  duties  of  religion,  to  which  most  governments,  in 
all  countries,  have  been  too  much  disposed,  will  think  this  opinion  of 
Roger  Williams  redounds  to  his  praise.  The  laws  of  the  first  table, 
or  the  four  commandments  of  the  decalogue  first  in  order,  should  be 
rather  impressed  by  early  education  han  by  penal  enactments  of  the 
legislature ;  and  the  experience  of  E  hode  Island  and  other  States  of 
our  Union  is  perhaps  favorable  to  the  sentiment  of  this  earliest 
American  reformer.  Too  much  regulation  was  the  error  of  our  fathers, 
who  were  perpetually  arguing  from  analogies  in  the  Levitical  institu- 
tions, and  encumbering  themselves  with  the  yoke  of  Jewish  customs." 


k  O  (i  B  R    W  1  L  I.  i  A  M  s.  49 

spect  for  the  constituted  authorities ;  but  he  claimed  the 
right  of  a  freeman  to  speak  freely  of  their  principles  and 
measures.  His  natural  temperament  would  give  warmth 
and  energy  to  his  remonstrance.  A  calmer  man  than  he 
might  have  been  moved,  if,  when  driven  from  his  native 
land  by  intolerance,  he  found,  in  the  country  to  which  he 
had  Hed,  the  same  principles  maintained,  the  same  usurpa- 
tion of  power  over  the  conscience  claimed,  as  a  regular 
attribute  of  the  civil  authority. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  General  Court  had  little 
cause  for  their  interference  between  Mr.  Williams  and  the 
church  at  Salem.  Their  right  to  interfere,  for  any  cause, 
will  not  now  be  maintained  by  any  man.  That  church, 
though  she  was  probably  aware  of  the  disapprobation  and 
meditated  interference  of  the  Court,  seems  to  have  disre- 
garded it,  and  on  the  12th  of  April,  the  same  day  on  which  the 
Court  was  held,  received  Mr.  Williams,  as  her  minister.* 
She  thus  consulted  her  duty  as  well  as  her  true  interests. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  King  and  Legislator  of  his  church. 
He  has  given  her  his  statute  book,  and  it  is  as  inconsistent 
with  her  duty,  as  it  ought  to  be  repugnant  to  her  feelings, 
to  permit  any  attempt  to  abridge  the  rights  which  her  Lord 
has  bestowed  on  her.  The  choice  of  her  pastors  and 
teachers  is  one  of  her  most  sacred  rights,  and  most  import- 
ant duties.  She  is  bound  to  exercise  this  high-  privilege, 
in  humble  dependence  on  the  teachings  of  divine  wisdom, 
but  with  a  resolute  resistance  of  attempts,  from  any  quarter, 
to  control  her  election. 

Notwithstanding  the  unwarrantable  proceedings  of  the 
Court,  which  must  have  been  offensive  both  to  the  princi- 
ples and  the  feelings  of  Mr.  W^illiams,  we  find  him,  the 
next  month,  (the  18th  of  May,  1631)  taking  the  usual  oath 
on  his  admission  as  a  freeman. t  This  fact  is  worthy  of 
notice,  because  it  proves,  that  he  was  willing  to  honor  the 

^  1  His.  Col.  vi.  p.  246. 

t  Prince,  p.  355.  Mr.  Williams'  name  is  found  in  a  list  of  persons, 
"  desiring  to  be  made  freemen,"  at  the  last  Court,  vvhich  met  October 
19,  1630,  nearly  four  months  before  his  arrival  in  America.  Prince, 
p.  331.  This  author  explains  the  diiuculty,  by  sajing  (p.  377,)  that 
the  October  list  '•  comprehends  all  those  who  entered  their  desires 
betvt^een  that  time  and  May  18,  1631."  It  appears,  therefore,  that 
Mr.  Williams,  with  characteristic  decisioii,  entered  his  name  on  the 
list  very  soon  after  his  arrival. 


so  M  E  M  O  1  R    O  P 

civil  authorities,  within  their  proper  sphere,  and  that  he 
desired  to  become  a  permanent  and  useful  citizen.  It 
shows,  too,  that  he  had  no  objection  to  an  oath,  when 
administered  in  "a  proper  mariier,  and  for  suitable  ends. 
At  this  very  Court,  the  law  was  made,  which  excluded  from 
the  rights  of  freemen  every  person,  who  was  not  a  member 
of  some  one  of  the  churches.  Whether  the  difficulty 
which  had  already  risen  respecting  Mr.  Williams,  had  any 
influence  in  producing  this  measure,  cannot  now  be  ascer- 
tained. 

Notwithstanding  that  the  church  at  Salem  had  received 
Mr.  Williams,  he  was  not  permitted  to  remain  in  peace. 
*' Persecution,"  says  Dr.  Bentley,*  "instead  of  calm  expos- 
tulation, instantly  commenced,  and  Williams,  before  the 
close  of  summer,  was  obliged  to  retire  to  Plymouth."  That 
this  separation  from  the  church  at  Salem  was  not  a  volun- 
tary one,  on  her  part  or  on  his,  may  be  presumed,  from  the 
fact,  asserted  by  the  historian  of  Salem  just  quoted,  that  "he 
was  embraced  with  joy  at  Salem,  and  throughout  all  his  life 
supported  a  high  place  in  th'eir  affections,  as  a  truly  godly 
man."t  His  return  to  that  town,  by  their  invitation,  two 
years  after,  is  a  satisfactory  proof  that  the  church  there  felt 
a  confidence  in  his  piety,  and  an  attachment  to  his  person 
and  ministry. I 

At  Plymouth,  Mr.  Williams  was  received  with  much 
respect,  and  became  an  assistant  to  Mr.  Ralph  Smith,  the 
pastor  of  the  church  there.  Governor  Bradford  speaks  of 
Mr.  Williams  in  honorable  terms, §  and  even  Morton,  who 
was  not  much  disposed  to  speak  favorably  of  him,  ac- 
knowledges that  he  "  was  well  accepted  as  an  assistant  in 
the  ministry."  1 1 

^  1  His.  Col.  vi.  pp.  24,  50.  t  Ibid. 

t  Mr.  ^Baylies,  in  his  Memoir  of  Plymouth,  vol.  i.  p.  266,  says, 
that  Mr.  Williams  left  Salem,  because  he  had  "become  discontented 
in  consequence  of  some  difierence  of  opinion  between  him  and  Mr. 
Skelton,  the  pastor."  This  appears  to  be  a  mistake.  Mr.  Upham, 
in  his  Second  Century  Lecture,  p.  12,  calls  Mr.  Skelton,  '•  the  faith- 
ful defender  of  Roger  Williams.*' 

§  '•  He  wasfreely  entertained  among  us,  according  to  our  poor  ability, 
exercised  his  gifts  among  us,  and  after  some  time  was  admitted 
a  member  of  the  church,  and  his  teaching  well  approved  ;  for  the 
benefit  whereof  I  shall  bless  God,  and  am  thankful  to  him  ever  for 
his  sharpest  admonitions  and  reproofs,  so  far  as  they  agreed  with 
truth."     Prince,  p.  377. 

II  Memorial,  p.  ].51. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  51 

During  Mr.  Williams*  residence  at  Plymouth,  Governor 
Winthrop,  with  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Boston,  and  other  gentle- 
men, visited  that  town.*  Winthrop's  account  of  the  visit  is 
so  strongly  illustrative  of  the  manners  of  those  times,  that 
it  may  be  properly  inserted. 

''1632.  September  25.  The  Governor,  with  Mr.  Wilson, 
pastor  of  Boston,  and  the  two  Captains,  &lc.  went  aboard  the 
Lyon,  and  from  thence  Mr.  Peirce  carried  them  in  his  shallop 
to  Wessaguscus.t  The  next  morning  Mr.  Peirce  returned 
to  his  ship,  and  the  Governor  and  his  company  went  on  foot 
to  Plymouth,  and  came  thither  within  the  evening.  The 
Governor  of  Plymouth,  Mr.  William  Bradford,  (a  very  dis- 
creet and  grave  man)  with  Mr.  Brewster,  the  elder,  and 
some  others,  came  forth  and  met  them  without  the  town, 
and  conducted  them  to  the  Governor's  house,  where  they 
were  very  kindly  entertained  and  feasted  every  day  at  several 
houses.  On  the  Lord's  day  there  was  a  sacrament, 
which  they  did  partake  in  ;  and  in  the  afternoon  Mr.  Roger 
Williams  (according  to  their  custom)  propounded  a  question, 

*  Cotton  Mather,  in  his  Magnalia,  b.  ii.  ch.  iv.  relates  the  fol- 
iovp^ing  incident,  as  having  occurred  during  this  visit.  Though  the 
extract  shows  his  strong  prejudices,  it  may  be  worth  an  insertion  as 
an  illustration  of  the  temper  and  manner  of  those  times.  ''  There 
v/ere  at  this  time  in  Plymouth  two  ministers,  leavened  so  far  with  the 
humors  of  the  rigid  separation,  that  they  insisted  vehemently  upon 
the  unlawfulness  of  calling  any  unregenerate  man  by  the  name  of 
good-man  such  a  one,  until  by  their  indiscreet  urging  of  this  whimsey , 
the  place  began  to  be  disquieted.  The  wiser  people  being  troubled 
at  these  trifles,  they  took  the  opportunity  of  Governor  Winthrop's 
being  there,  to  have  the  thing  publicly  propounded  in  the  congrega- 
tion ;  who,  in  answer  thereunto,  distinguished  between  a  theological 
and  a  moral  goodness  :  adding,  that  when  juries  were  first  used  in 
England,  it  was  usual  for  the  crier,  after  the  names  of  persons  fit  for 
that  service  were  called  over,  to  bid  them  all.  Attend,  good  men  and 
true  ;  whence  it  grew  to  be  a  civil  custom  in  the  English  nation  for 
neighbors  living  by  one  another  to  call  one  another  good-man  such  a 
one,  and  it  w^as  pity  now  to  make  a  stir  about  a  civil  custom,  so 
innocently  introduced.  And  that  speech  of  Mr.  Winthrop's  put 
a  lasting  stop  to  the  little,  idle,  whimsical  conceits,  then  beginning 
to  grow  obstreperous." 

If  the  preceding  statement  is  true,  it  may  be  charitably  viewed  as 
an  indication  of  the  scrupulous  conscientiousness  of  Mr.  Williams, 
who  thought,  perhaps,  that  Jiames  are  sometimes  things,  and  was  un- 
willing that  the  term  good  man  should  be  indiscriminately 
applied  to  all  men.  If  he  yielded  to  Gov.  Winthrop's  explanation, 
it  proves,  that  he  was  not  so  obstinate  in  trifles,  as  he  has  been 
represented. 

t  Weymouth. 


52  M  E  M  O  I  R     of 

to  which  the  pastor,  Mr.  Smith,  spake  briefly  ;  then  Mr. 
Williams  prophesied  ;  and  after  the  Governor  of  Plymoutli 
spake  to  the  question  ;  after  him,  the  elder  ;  then  some  two 
or  three  more  of  the  congregation.  Then  the  elder  desired 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  and  Mr.  Wilson,  to  speak 
to  it,  which  they  did.  When  this  was  ended,  the  deacon, 
Mr.  Fuller,  put  the  congregation  in  mind  of  their  duty  of 
contribution  ;  whereupon  the  Governor  and  all  the  rest 
went  down  to  the  deacons'  seat,  and  put  into  the  box,  and 
then  returned."     Vol.  i.  p.  91. 

While  at  Plymouth,  Mr.  Williams  enjoyed  favorable 
opportunities  of  intercourse  with  the  Indians,  who  frequently 
visited  that  town.  It  appears,  too,  that  he  made  excur- 
sions among  them,  to  learn  their  manners  and  their  lan- 
guage, and  thus  to  qualify  himself  to  promote  their  welfare. 
His  whole  life  furnished  evidence  of  the  sincerity  of  his 
declaration,  in  one  of  his  letters,  "My  soul's  desire  was,  to 
do  the  natives  good."  He  became  acquainted  with  Mas- 
sasoit,  or,  as  he  was  also  called,  Ousamequin,  the  sachem  of 
the  Pokanokets,  and  father  of  the  famous  Philip.  He  also 
formed  an  intimacy  with  Canonicus,  the  Narraganset  sa- 
chem. He  secured  the  confidence  of  these  savage  chiefs, 
by  acts  of  kindness,  by  presents,  and  not  less,  perhaps,  by 
studying  their  language.  He  says,  in  a  letter,  written  near 
the  close  of  his  life,  *'  God  was  pleased  to  give  me  a  painful, 
patient  spirit,  to  lodge  with  them  in  their  filthy  smoky 
holes,  (even  while  I  lived  at  Plymouth  and  Salem)  to  gain 
their  tongue." 

The  effects  of  this  intimacy  with  the  sachems  were  very 
important.  We  shall  see,  by  his  subsequent  history,  that 
his  success,  in  purchasing  lands  for  himself  and  for  the 
other  settlers  in  Rhode  Island,  was  the  result  mainly  of  his 
personal  influence  with  the  Indians.  We  discern,  in  these 
preparatory  measures,  the  hand  of  God,  who  was  designing 
to  employ  Mr.  Williams  as  an  instrument  in  establishing  a 
new  colony,  and  in  preserving  New-England  from  the  fury 
of  the  savages. 

There  is  reason  to  believe,  that  for  some  time  previously 
to  his  banishment,  he  had  conceived  the  idea  of  residing 
among  the  Indians,  and  that  in  his  intercourse  with  the 
sachems,  some  propositions  had  been  made  respecting  a 
cession  of  land.     His  strong  desire  to  benefit  the  natives 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  53 

was  a  sufficient  inducement ;  and  he  had,  perhaps,  seen 
such  indications  of  the  state  of  feeling  towards  him  among 
the  colonists,  as  to  awaken  an  apprehension  that  he  would 
not  long  be  allowed  to  remain  within  their  jurisdiction. 

Mr.  Williams  continued  about  two  years  at  Plymouth. 
Wh^le  there,  we  may  easily  believe,  he  uttered  his  senti- 
ments on  those  points  which  had  occasioned  his  removal 
from  Salem,  as  well  as  on  other  subjects,  in  relation  to 
which  his  opinions  were  at  variance  with  those  of  that  age. 
They  were  not  acceptable  to  the  principal  personages  at 
Plymouth,  though  it  does  not  appear  that  any  public  ex- 
pression of  disapprobation  was  made  by  the  church.  His 
heart  was  evidently  drawn  towards  Salem,  and  being  in- 
vited to  return,*  to  assist  Mr.  Skelton,  whose  declining 
health  unfitted  him  for  his  duties,  Mr.  Williams  requested 
a  dismission  from  the  church  at  Plymouth.  Some  of  the 
members  were  unwilling  to  be  separated  from  him,  and  ac- 
companied him  to  Salem,  after  ineffectual  efforts  to  detain 
him  at  Plymouth. t  But  the  ruling  elder,  Mr.  Brewster, 
prevailed  on  the  church  to  dismiss  him  and  his  adherents. 
Mr.  Brewster  probably  disliked  his  opinions,  and  feared 
that  he  would  be  successful  in  diffusing  them  at  Plymouth. 
He,  therefore,  alarmed  the  church,  by  expressing  his  fears, 
that  Mr.  Williams  would  "  run  the  same  course  of  rigid 
separation  and  anabaptistry,  which  Mr.  John  Smith,  the 
Se-Baptist,  at  Amsterdam,  had  done. "J  Anabaptism  was 
a  spectre,  which  haunted  the  imaginations  of  the  early  set- 
tlers. The  word  possessed  a  mysterious  power  of  inspiring 
terror   and   creating  odium.     It  has,  perhaps,  been  some- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  56.  Some  writers  insinuate,  that  he  went  back 
without  an  invitation. 

t  Memorial,  p.  151. 

t  Memorial,  p.  151.  Mr.  Smith  was  an  English  minister,  who 
separated  from  the  Church  of  England,  and  went  to  Holland,  where 
he  embraced  the  sentiments  of  the  Baptists.  He  is  said  to  have 
baptized  himself,  for  want  of  a  suitable  administrator,  and  hence  was 
called  a  Se-Baptist.  Dr.  Toulmin  remarks,  on  this  assertion,  "  This 
is  said  on  the  authority  of  his  opponents  only,  who,  from  the  acrimo- 
ny with  which  they  wrote  against  him,  it  may  be  reasonably  con- 
cluded, might  be  ready  to  take  up  a  report  against  him  upon  slender 
evidence."  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  vol.  ii.  p.  72,  note. 
Mr.  Neal  says,  that  "  he  wa-s  a  learned  man,  of  good  abilities,  but  of 
an  unsettled  head."  His  adoption  of  Baptist  principles  explains  this 
reproach. 


54  M  E  M  O  1  R     O  P 

times  employed  to  justify  measures,  which  might  else  have 
wanted  the  appearance  of  justice  and  humanity.  It  was 
one  of  those  terms,  which,  in  the  language  of  the  most 
original  writer,  perhaps,  of  this  age — himself  liable  to  the 
charge  of  anabaptism* — "  can  be  made  the  symbol  of  all 
that  is  absurd  and  execrable,  so  that  the  very  sound  of  it 
shall  irritate  the  passions  of  the  multitude,  as  dogs  have 
been  taught  to  bark,  at  the  name  of  a  neighboring  tyrant. "f 
While  Mr.  Williams  was  at  Plymouth,  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter was  born  there,  in  the  first  week  in  August,  1633.t  She 
was  named  Mary,  after  her  mother. 

*  The  Rev.  John  Foster,  in  his  essay  on  the  epithet  Romantic. 

t  See  Appendix  B.  for  some  remarks  on  the  Anabaptists. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  pp.  57,  516.  Dr.  Bentley,  1  His.  Col.  vi.  p.  247, 
says,  that  the  child  was  born  in  Salem,  but  Mr.  Backus'  statement 
is  more  probable,  and  he  quotes  the  Providence  Records  as  authority 


ROGER      WILLIAMS,  55 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Returns  to  Salem — Ministers  Meetings — Court  again  interferes — 
the  rights  of  the  Indians — his  book  against  the  patent — wearing  of 
veils — controversy  about  the  cross  in  the  colors. 

Mr.  Williams  left  Plymouth  probably  about  the  end  of 
August,  1633.*  He  resumed  his  labors  at  Salem,  as  an 
assistant  to  Mr.  Skelton,  though,  for  some  cause,  he  was 
not  elected  to  any  office  till  after  Mr.  Skelton's  death. 
Perhaps  the  expectation  of  this  event  induced  the  church 
to  delay  the  election  of  Mr.  Williams. 

Soon  after  his  return  to  Salem,  his  watchful  love  of  lib- 
erty seems  to  have  excited  him,  together  with  the  venera- 
ble Mr.  Skelton,  to  express  some  apprehension  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  a  meeting,  which  several  ministers  had  estab- 
lished, for  the  ostensible  and  probably  real  purpose  of 
mutual  improvement,  and  consultation  respecting  their  du- 
ties, and  the  interests  of  religion.  Winthrop  thus  states, 
under  the  date  of  November,  1633  : 

"  The  ministers  in  the  Bay  and  Saugus  did  meet  once  a 
fortnight,   at  one  of  their   houses,  by  course,  where  some 


*  There  is  a  strange  confusion  in  the  statements  of  different  writers 
respecting  the  duration  of  Mr.  Williams'  stay  at  Plymouth,  and  the 
date  of  his  removal.  Morton  says,  that  he  preached  at  Plymouth 
about  three  years,  and  was  dismissed  in  1634.  Baylies  repeats  this 
statement.  Hutchinson  says,  that  he  remained  at  Plymouth  three 
or  four  years ;  Cotton  Mather  says  two  years,  and  Dr.  Bentley 
states,  that  he  returned  to  Salem  before  the  end  of  the  year  1632. 
But  Mr.  Backus  supposes  the  time  of  his  removal  from  Plymouth  to 
have  been  in  August.  1633.  "His  first  child  was  born  there  the  first 
week  in  August,  1633,  (Providence  Records)  and  Mr.  Cotton,  who 
arrived  at  Boston  the  fourth  of  September  following,  says,  he  had 
removed  into  the  Bay  before  his  arrival."  (Tenet  Washed,  part  2, 
p.  4.)  It  is  certain,  from  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  i.  p.  117,  that  Mr. 
Williams  had  returned  to  Salem  previously  to  November,  1633,  for 
under  that  date  Winthrop  says,  that  he  '•  was  removed  from  Ply- 
mouth thither,  (but  not  in  any  office,  though  he  exercised  by  way  of 
prophecy.")  The  expression  implies,  that  he  had  recently  removed, 
and  this  agrees  with  the  supposition  that  he  returned  to  Salem  in 
August. 


56  MEMOIROF 

question  of  moment  was  debated.  Mr.  Skelton,  the  pastoif 
of  Salem,  and  Mr.  Williams,  who  was  removed  from  Ply- 
mouth thither,  (but  not  in  any  office,  though  he  exercised 
by  way  of  prophecy)  took  some  exception  against  it,  as 
fearing  it  might  grow  in  time  to  a  presbytery  or  superin- 
tendency,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  churches'  liberties.  But 
this  fear  was  without  cause ;  for  they  were  all  clear  in  that 
point,  that  no  church  or  person  can  have  power  over 
another  church ;  neither  did  they,  in  their  meetings,  exer- 
cise any  such  jurisdiction.'^    Vol.  i.  p.  116. 

It  may  be  true,  that  the  fears  of  Mr.  Skelton  and  Mr. 
Williams  were  without  cause,  and,  in  our  own  times,  such 
meetings  of  ministers  are  held,  with  much  advantage  to 
themselves  and  to  the  churches,  and  without  exciting 
alarm.  But  before  we  decide,  that  Mr.  Williams  was  un- 
necessarily apprehensive,  and  especially  before  we  accuse 
him  of  a  turbulent  and  factious  temper,  it  deserves  inquiry, 
whether  his  experience  of  ecclesiastical  usurpation  and  in- 
tolerance in  England  might  not  justify  the  fear,  that  the 
frequent  consultations  of  the  ministers  were  not  ominous  of 
good  to  the  independence  of  the  churches  and  to  lib- 
erty of  conscience.  Mr.  Skelton,  how^ever,  seems  to  have 
been  the  principal  in  this  opposition.*  It  may  have  been 
a  good  service  to  the  cause  of  liberty  and  of  religion.  A 
watchful  dread  of  encroachments  on  civil  or  religious  free- 
dom is  not  useless,  in  any  age.  It  was  a  prominent  trait 
in  the  character  of  the  colonists,  before  the  revolution,  and 
it  will  always  be  cherished  by  a  free  people.  It  is  a  salu- 
tary provision,  like  the  sense  of  fear  in  the  human  bosom. 
It  may  sometimes  cause  an  unnecessary  alarm,  as  the 
watchman  may  arouse  the  city  with  an  unfounded  report 
of  danger.  But  these  evils  are  preferable  to  the  incautious 
negligence,  which  fears  not  peril,  and  thus  invites  it. 

But  more  important  causes  of  offence  to  the  magistrates 
and  the  clergy  were  soon  found,  in  the  sentiments  and  con- 
duct of  Mr.  Williams.  So  early  as  December  27,  1633, 
we  find  the  General  Court  again  convened  to  consult  re- 
specting him : 
V  ..^*  December  27.     The  Governor   and  Assistants  met  at 

■^^^foir.  .--   . . 

*Mr.  Skelton's  name  is  first  mentioned  by  Winthrop,  and  Dr. 
Bentley  (1  His.  Col.  vi.  p.  248)  attributes  to  Mr.  Skelton  the  open 
opposition 


ROGER     WILLIAMS  S7 

Boston,  and  took  into  consideration  a  treatise,  which  Mr. 
Williams  (then  of  Salem)  had  sent  to  them,  and  which  he 
had  formerly  written  to  the  Governor  and  Council  of  Ply- 
mouth, wherein,  among  other  things,  he  disputed  their 
right  to  the  lands  they  possessed  here,  and  concluded  that, 
claiming  by  the  King's  grant,  they  could  have  no  title,  nor 
otherwise,  except  they  compounded  with  the  natives.  For 
this,  taking  advice  with  some  of  the  most  judicious  minis- 
ters, (who  much  condemned  Mr.  Williams'  error  and  pre- 
sumption) they  gave  order,  that  he  should  be  con  vented  at 
the  next  Court,  to  be  censured,  &.c.  There  were  three 
passages  chiefly  whereat  they  were  much  offended  :  1.  for 
that  he  chargeth  King  James  to  have  told  a  solemn  public 
lie,  becauss,  in  his  patent,  he  blessed  God  that  he  was  the 
first  Christian  prince  that  had  discovered  this  land  :  2.  for 
that  he  chargeth  him  and  others  with  blasphemy,  for  call- 
ing Europe  Christendom,  or  the  Christian  world  :  3.  for 
that  he  did  personally  apply  to  our  present  King,  Charles, 
these  three  places  in  the  Revelations,  viz  :   [blank.]* 

"  Mr.  Endicott  being  absent,  the  Governor  wrote  to  him 
to  let  him  know  what  was  done,  and  withal  added  divers 
arguments  to  confute  the  said  errors,  wishing  him  to  deal 
with  Mr.  Williams  to  retract  the  same,  &c.  Whereto  he 
returned  a  very  modest  and  discreet  answer.  Mr.  Williams 
also  wrote  to  the  Governor,  and  also  to  him  and  the  rest  of 
the  Council  very  submissively,  professing  his  intent  to  have 
been  only  to  have  written  for  the  private  satisfaction  of  the 
Governor,  &c.  of  Plymouth,  without  any  purpose  to  have 
stirred  any  further  in  it,  if  the  Governor  here  had  not  re- 
quired a  copy  of  him ;  withal  offering  his  book,  or  any  part 
of  it,  to  be  burnt. 

"  At  the  next  Court  he  appeared  jjemYew^Zy,  and  gave  sat- 
isfaction of  his  intention  and  loyalty.  So  it  was  left,  and 
nothing  done  in  it."     Vol.  i.  p.  122. 

The  book,  which  occasioned  these  transactions,  has  not 

*•'•  Perhaps,"  says  Mr.  Savage,  "the  same  expressions  from  an- 
other would  have  given  less  offence.  Frona  Williams  they  were  not 
at  first  received  in  the  mildest,  or  even  the  most  natural  sense  ; 
though  further  reflection  satisfied  the  magistrates  that  his  were  not 
dangerous.  The  passages  from  the  Apocalypse  were  probably  not 
applied  to  the  honor  of  the  King ;  and  I  regret,  therefore,  that  Win- 
throp  did  not  preserve  them." 
6 


58  MEMOIR     OF 

been  preserved.*  We  know  not  in  what  terms  Mr.  Wil~ 
liams  uttered  his  offensive  opinions.  The  doctrine  which 
he  maintained,  that  the  charter  from  the  King  of  England- 
could  not  convey  to  the  colonists  the  right  to  occupy  the 
lands  of  the  Indians,  without  their  consent,  is,  in  the  high- 
est degree,  honorable  to  his  head  and  his  heart.  He  clearly 
saw  the  utter  absurdity  and  injustice  of  the  pretension,, 
whether  made  by  the  Pope  or  by  a  Protestant  monarch,  of 
sovereignty  over  other  countries,  merely  on  the  ground  of 
prior  discovery,  or  of  the  barbarous  and  wandering  charac- 
ter of  the  inhabitants.  It  may  be  a  useful  regulation 
among  nations,  that  the  first  discoverers  of  a  country  shall 
possess  a  superior  right  to  intercourse  with  the  inhabitants 
for  trade  or  other  purposes.  But  no  people,  whether  Pa- 
gans or  Christians,  can  rightfully  be  subjected  to  a  sway^ 
to  which  they  have  not  voluntarily  submitted.  This  fun- 
damental principle  of  human  rights  applies  to  the  Indians. 
They  were  independent  tribes,  and  could,  in  no  sense,  be 
considered  as  the  subjects  of  the  King  of  England.  The 
fact,  that  some  of  his  vessels  had  sailed  along  their  coasts, 
no  more  gave  him  a  title  to  be  their  sovereign,  than  the 
passage  of  one  of  their  canoes  up  the  Thames  would  have 
transferred  to  Canonicus  or  Powhatan  a  claim  to  the  crown 
of  England.  If  the  King  possessed  no  jurisdiction  over  the 
Indians,  he  could  not,  of  course,  convey  a  title  to  their 
lands.  It  was  this  point  on  which  Mr.  Williams  insisted 
with  special  earnestness.  "  His  own  account  of  this  mat- 
ter," says  Mr.  Backus,  (vol.  i.  p.  58,)  '*  informs  us,  that  the 
sin  of  the  patents  which  lay  so  heavy  on  his  mind  was,  that 
therein  '  Christian  Kings  (so  called)  are  invested  with  a 
right,  by  virtue  of  their  Christianity,  to  take  and  give  away 
the  lands  and  countries  of  other  men.'t      And  he  tells  us, 

*It  was  probably  this  book,  to  which  Mr.  Coddington  alluded,  in 
his  bitter  letter  against  Mr.  Williams,  inserted  at  the  close  of  Fox's 
Reply.  Mr.  W.  is  there  charged  with  having  '"written  a  quarto 
against  the  King's  patent  and  authority." 

t  A  writer  in  the  North  American  Review,  for  October,  1830,  p. 
404,  says  :  "The  Kings  of  Europe  did,  in  some  instances,  assert  the 
right  to  subdue  the  natives  by  force,  and  to  appropriate  their  terri- 
tory, without  their  consent,  to  the  uses  of  the  colonists.  The  King 
of  Spain  founded  this  right  solely  on  the  grant  of  the  Pope,  as  the 
vicegerent  of  Christ  upon  earth.  The  Kings  of  England,  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  placed  it  on  the  superior  claims,  which  Christians 
possessed  over  infidels." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  59 

that  this  evil  so  deeply  afflicted  his  soul,  that  '  before  his 
troubles  and  banishment,  he  drew  up  a  letter,  not  with- 
out the  approbation  of  some  of  the  chiefs  of  New-England, 
then  tender  also  upon  this  point  before  God,  directed  unto 
the  King  himself,  humbly  acknowledging  the  evil  of  that 
PART  of  the  patent,  which  respects  the  donation  of  lands,'  " 
&c.*  And  the  colonists  themselves  acted,  generally,  on 
the  very  principle  which  Mr.  Williams  advocated.  They 
purchased  the  lands  of  the  natives,  for  a  trifling  recom- 
pense, as  it  may  seem  to  us,  but  such  as  satisfied  the  In- 
dians. Cotton  Mather  states,  though  he  reckons  it  as  a 
proof  of  civility,  that  '^  notwithstanding  the  patent  which 
they  had  for  the  country,  they  fairly  purchased  of  the  na- 
tives the  several  tracts  of  land  which  they  afterwards  pos- 
sessed."t  Dr.  Dwight  asserts,  that  *' exclusively  of  the 
country  of  the  Pequods,  the  inhabitants  of  Connecticut 
bought,  unless  I  am  deceived,  every  inch  of  ground  con- 
tained within  that  colony,  of  its  native  proprietors.  The 
people  of  Rhode-Island,  Plymouth,  Massachusetts  and 
New-Hampshire,  proceeded  wholly  in  the  same  equitable 
manner.  Until  Philip's  war,  in  1675,  not  a  single  foot  of 
ground  was  claimed  or  occupied  by  the  colonists  On  any 
other  score  but  that  of  fair  purchase.^'|  These  facts  are 
honorable  to  the  pilgrims,  and  assuredly  Roger  Williams  is 
entitled  to  some  praise  for  steadily  advocating  this  policy 
from  the  beginning.  He,  perhaps,  construed  the  patent 
with  too  much  rigor.  The  King  did  not,  it  may  be,  mean 
all  that  his  lofty  royal  style  implied.  In  his  patent  to  the 
Plymouth  Company,  he  alludes  to  the  ^'  wonderful  plague  " 
which  had  raged  among  the  natives,  and  left  the  "large 
and  goodly  territories  deserted  as  it  were  by  the  natural  in- 
habitants." He  nevertheless  calls  himself  the  "  sovereign 
lord  "  of  the  whole  continent,  and  therefore  by  his  "  special 
grace,  mere  motion,  and  certain  knowledge,'^  gives  and 
grants  to  the  Company  a  large  part  of  the  continent,  from 
sea  to  sea,  without  intimating  that  any  rights  belonged  to 
the  natives.  A  warm  friend  to  the  Indians  might  easily 
construe  such  an  instrument  as  a  designed  and  flagrant 
usurpation  of  their  rights.  We  have  seen  how  the  colonists 
of  New-England  practised  under  the  patent,  and  Mr.  Cot- 

*  Reply  to  Cotton  on  the  Bloody  Tenet,  pp.  276,  277. 
i  Magnalia^  book  L  c.  v.  §  5,        J  Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  167. 


60  MEMOIROF 

ton,  in  his  reply  to  Roger  Williams,  affirms:  *'It  was 
neither  the  King's  intendment,  nor  the  English  planters', 
to  take  possession  of  the  country  by  murder  or  by  robbery, 
but  either  to  take  possession  of  the  void  places  of  the  coun- 
try, by  the  law  of  nature,  (for  vacuum  domicilium  cedit  oc- 
cupanti)  or  if  we  took  any  lands  from  the  natives,  it  was 
by  way  of  purchase  and  free  consent.  We  have  not  our 
land  merely  by  right  of  patent  from  the  King,  but  that  the 
natives  are  true  owners  of  all  that  they  possess  or  improve. 
Neither  do  I  know  any  amongst  us,  that  either  then  were,  or 
now  are,  of  another  mind."     Bloody  Tenet  Washed,  p.  26. 

But  this  subject  deserves  a  more  full  consideration  than 
we  can  here  give  it.  The  suggestions  now  offered  may 
suffice  to  exhibit  the  upright  integrity  and  sound  judgment 
which  drew  from  Mr.  Williams  his  declarations  in  favor  of 
the  natives.  It  seems,  that  his  book  discussed  the  abstract 
question,  and  probably  it  was  called  forth  by  some  expres- 
sion of  the  opposite  doctrine.  It  was  not  intended  for  the 
public  eye,  but  was  a  private  communication  to  the  Gov- 
ernor and  other  gentlemen  of  Plymouth.  He  could  not  be 
charged  with  a  public  attack  in  this  book  on  the  charter. 
Nor  is  it  certain,  that  he  questioned  the  authority  of  the 
charter,  so  far  as  it  could  operate  without  an  infringement 
of  the  rights  of  the  Indians.  He  was,  indeed,  charged  by 
Mr.  Cotton  (Hubbard,  210)  with  insisting  that  the  charter 
ought  to  be  returned  to  the  King.  This  would  certainly 
have  been  very  unwise,  but  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  Mr. 
Williams  would  carry  his  opposition  to  this  unreasonable 
length.  Winthrop  does  not  intimate  that  any  such  opinion 
was  expressed,  and  Mr.  Cotton  may  have  misunderstood 
Mr.  Williams'  real  meaning. 

In  regard  to  the  passages  which  were  construed  as  dis- 
respectful to  the  King,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  his 
own  words  are  not  reported ;  and  at  a  meeting  of  the  Court, 
in  January,  the  magistrates  and  the  clergy  acknowledged 
that  they  had  taken  unnecessary  offence.  It  is  probable 
that  they  misunderstood  him.  Winthrop  says,  under  date 
of  January  24,  1633-4:  "  The  Governor  and  Council  met 
again  at  Boston,  to  consider  of  Mr.  Williams'  letter,  &,c. 
when,  with  the  advice  of  Mr.  Cotton  and  Mr.  Wilson,  and 
weighing  his  letter,  and  further  considering  of  the  aforesaid 
oflfensive  passages  in  his  book,  (which  being  written  in 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  61 

Very  obscure  and  implicative  phrases,  might  well  admit  of 
doubtful  interpretation,)  they  found  the  matters  not  to  be  so 
fevil  as  at  first  they  seemed.  Whereupon  they  agreed,  that, 
upon  his  retraction,  &c.  or  taking  an  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  King.  &lc.  it  should  be  passed  over."     Vol.  i.  p.  123. 

The  conduct  of  Mr.  Williams  on  this  occasion  was,  it 
must  be  acknowledged,  mild  and  conciliatory.  He  offered 
to  burn  the  offensive  book,  though  he  did  not  retract  his 
opinions.  He  wrote  to  the  Court,  we  are  told,  "  submis- 
sively," and  afterwards  appeared  before  them  "  penitently," 
and  furnished  satisfactory  evidence  of  his  "  loyalty."  We 
cannot  determine,  how  far  these  expressions  may  be  con- 
strued to  imply  an  acknowledgment  of  error  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Williams ;  but  they  are  valuable,  as  a  proof  that  he 
was  not  so  obstinate  and  contumacious  as  the  world  have 
been  taught  to  regard  hini. 

He  was  now  permitted,  for  a  while,  to  continue  his  min- 
istry at  Salem,  without  interruption  from  the  magistrates. 
He  was  popular  as  a  preacher,  and  the  people  at  Salem  be- 
came strongly  attached  to  him.  Mr.  Skelton  died  in  Au- 
gust, 1634,  and  Mr.  Williams  was  soon  after  invited  to  be- 
come the  teacher  of  the  church.  The  magistrates  sent  to 
the  church  a  request,  that  they  would  not  ordain  him ;  but 
the  church  persisted,  and  Mr.  Williams  was  regularly  in- 
troduced to  the  office  of  teacher. 

This  "  great  contempt  of  authority,"  as  it  was  afterwards 
pronounced  to  be  by  the  magistrates  and  ministers,  was  not 
forgotten.     We  shall  soon  see  how  it  was  punished. 

We  may  here  take  notice  of  two  charges  against  Mr. 
Williams,  which,  trivial  as  they  are,  have  been  often  al- 
leged to  his  disadvantage.  It  has  been  said,  that  he 
preached  on  the  use  of  veils  by  females,  and  insisted  that 
they  should  wear  them  in  religious  assemblies.  We  have 
no  record  of  his  real  sentiments  on  this  frivolous  subject. 
Dr.  Bentley  asserts,  that  Mr.  Endicott  had  introduced  it 
before  Mr.  Williams  arrived,  and  that  the  latter  adopted 
the  notion,  rather  to  gratify  Mr.  Endicott  and  Mr.  Skelton, 
than  because  he  felt  any  interest  in  it  himself*     And  if  it 

*  Mr.  Endicott's  zeal  on  this  point  may  be  learned  from  the  follow- 
ing incident,  related  by  Winthrop  :    "  March  7,  1633.  At  the  lecture 
al  Boston  a  question  was  propounded  about  veils.     Mr.  Cotton  con- 
cluded, that  where  (by  the  custom  of  the  place)  they  were  not  a 
6* 


62  M  E  M  O I  R     O  P 

were  true,  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  custom,  and  wasted 
his  time  in  establishing  it,  we  should  regard  it  as  a  venial 
weakness,  springing  from  a  reverence  for  the  Scriptures, 
and  a  desire  for  the  decorum  of  public  worship.  Before 
we  condemn  him,  we  should  call  to  mind,  that  other  di- 
vines of  great  name  in  New-England,  such  as  President 
Chauncy  and  John  Elliot,  preached  vehemently  against 
wigs,  and  that,  in  1649,  the  magistrates  signed  a  grave 
protest  against  the  custom  among  men  of  wearing  long 
hair,  and  requested  the  clergy  to  preach  against  it,  "  as  a 
thing  uncivil  and  unmanly,  whereby  men  do  deform  them- 
selves, and  offend  sober  and  modest  men,  and  do  corrupt 
good  manners."* 

The  other  charge  is  of  more  importance.  It  is  said,  that 
in  consequence  of  Mr.  Williams'  preaching,  Mr.  Endicott 
cut  the  cross  out  of  the  military  colors,  as  a  relic  of  anti- 
christian  superstition.  This  act  was  doubtless  unjustifia- 
ble, because  the  colors  were  established  by  the  authority  of 
the  King,  and  ought  to  have  been  viewed  as  a  merely  civil 
regulation.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  Mr.  Williams 
advised  the  measure.  It  seems  rather  to  have  been  a  prac- 
tical application,  by  Mr.  Endicott,  of  the  doctrine  maintain- 
ed by  Mr.  Williams  on  the  unlawfulness  of  the  ceremonies 
and  symbols  which  had  been  used  in  the  service  of  idolatry 
and  of  Popery.  The  great  controversy  between  the  Puri- 
tans and  the  Prelates  in  England  mainly  turned  on  the  use 
of  the  surplice,  and  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  other  Popish 
ceremonies,  which  the  English  Church  retained.  The 
Puritans  would  not  conform  to  the  church,  on  account  of 
these  ceremonies,  which  they  regarded  as  abominable  relics 
of  Popery.     It  was  a  principle  among  them,  on  which  they 

sign  of  the  woman's  subjection,  they  were  not  commanded  by  the 
apostle.  Mr.  Endicott  opposed,  and  did  maintain  it  by  the  general 
arguments  brought  by  the  apostle.  After  some  debate,  the  Governor, 
perceiving  it  to  grow  to  some  earnestness,  interposed,  and  so  it 
brake  off."     Vol.  i.  p.  125. 

Hutchinson  (vol.  i.  p.  379)  says,  on  the  authority  of  Hubbard,  that 
"Mr.  Cotton,  of  Boston,  happening  to  preach  at  .Salem,  soon  after 
this  custom  began,  he  convinced  his  hearers  that  it  had  no  sufficient 
foundation  in  the  Scriptures.  His  sermon  had  so  good  an  effect, 
that  they  were  all  ashamed  of  their  veils,  and  never  appeared  cover- 
ed with  them  afterwards." 

*  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  142. 


IIOGER      WILLIAMS.  63 

acted,  that  "such  rites  and  ceremonies  as  had  been  abused 
to  idolatry,  and  manifestly  tended  to  lead  men  back  to 
Popery  and  superstition,  were  no  longer  indifferent,  but  to 
be  rejected  as  unlawful."* 

Mr.  Williams  probably  preached  this  doctrine  at  Salem, 
and  Mr.  Endicott  deemed  it  his  duty,  as  a  magistrate,  to 
remove  from  the  colors  the  cross,  which  was  the  favorite 
symbol  of  Popery. t  Dr.  Bentley  asserts,  that  Mr.  Williams 
was  the  "  innocent,  though  the  real  cause  of  it."|  Mr. 
Endicott  was  summoned  before  the  Court,  admonished, 
and  declared  incapable,  for  one  year,  of  holding  any  public 
office,  as  a  punishment  for  the  act ;  but  neither  he,  nor  the 
Court,  appear  to  have  attributed  any  blame  to  Mr.  Williams, 
which  we  may,  without  a  want  of  charity,  suppose  they 
would  have  done,  if  there  had  been  any  reasonable  pre- 
tence. 

*Nears  Hist.  Puritans,  vol.  i.  p.  184. 

+  The  question  about  the  lawfulness  of  the  cross  caused  much 
agitation  and  controversy.  '•  Some  of  our  chief  worthies,"  says  Cot- 
ton Mather,  (Magnalia,  b.  vii.  c.  ii.  §  9)  '-'maintained  their  different 
persuasions,  with  weapons  indeed  no  more  dangerous  than  easy  pens, 
and  effects  no  worse  than  a  little  harmless  and  learned  inkshed." 
Mr.  Hooker  wrote  a  tract  of  nearly  thirteen  pages,  in  defence  of  the 
cross.  Winthrop  says,  that  the  Court  were  •'  doubtful  of  the  lawful 
use  of  the  cross  in  an  ensign."  The  militia  refused  to  march  with 
the  mutilated  banners.  The  matter  was  finally  settled,  by  leaving 
out  the  cross  in  the  colors  for  the  trained  bands,  and  retaining  it  in 
the  banners  of  the  castle  and  of  vessels. 

X  1  His.  CoL  vi.  p.  246. 


64  MEMOlROf 


CHAPTER  V. 


Proceedings  which  led  to  his  banishment — freeman's  oath — various 
charges  against  him — sentence — birth  of  his  second  child — leaves 
Salem  for  Narraganset  Bay — review  of  the  causes  of  his  banish* 
ment. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  narrate  the  measures  which 
issued  in  the  banishment  of  Mr.  Williams.  We  shall  fol- 
low the  guidance  of  Winthrop,  as  to  the  facts,  because  this 
truly  great  man  wrote  without  the  angry  temper  which 
most  of  the  early  writers  on  the  subject  exhibited. 

"  1634,  Nov.  27.  The  Court  was  informed,  that  Mr. 
Williams,  of  Salem,  had  broken  his  promise  to  us,  in  teach- 
ing publicly  against  the  King's  patent,  and  our  great  sin  in 
claiming  right  thereby  to  this  country,  &.c.  and  for  usual 
terming  the  churches  of  England  antichristian.  We  grant- 
ed summons  to  him  for  his  appearance  at  the  next  Court." 
Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  151. 

We  are  not  informed  of  the  terms  of  Mr.  Williams' 
promise,  here  referred  to,  and  cannot  decide  how  far  he 
had  broken  it.  The  epithet  which  he  is  said  to  have  ap- 
plied to  the  churches  in  England,  might,  in  his  judgment, 
have  been  well  deserved  by  many  of  them.  He,  of  course, 
referred  to  the  established  churches,  then  practising,  as 
the  Puritans  believed,  idolatrous  ceremonies,  and  under  the 
direction  of  wicked  men.  Mr.  Cotton,  in  his  "Bloody 
Tenet  Washed,"  (p.  109)  acknowledges  it  to  be  a  source  of 
grief  to  himself  and  others,  "that  there  is  yet  so  much  of 
those  notorious  evils  still  continuing  in  the  parishes,  (in 
England)  worldliness,  ignorance,  superstition,  scoffing, 
swearing,  cursing,  whoredom,  drunkenness,  theft,  lying ;  I 
may  add,  also,  murder,  and  malignity  against  the  godly, 
suffered  to  thrust  themselves  into  the  fellowship  of  the 
churches,  and  to  sit  down  with  the  saints  at  the  Lord's  ta- 
ble." We  may  be  allowed  to  think,  that  Roger  Williams 
was  not  remarkably  bigoted,  if  he  did  call  such  churches 
as  these  antichristian,  and  deem  it  a  sin  to  hold  fellowship 
with  them.      He  obeyed  the  summons  of  the  Court : 


R  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  65 

'*  1635,  Mo.  2,  30.*  The  Governor  and  Assistants  sent 
for  Mr.  Williams.  The  occasion  was,  for  that  he  had  taught 
publicly,  that  a  magistrate  ought  not  to  tender  an  oath  to 
an  unregenerate  man,  for  that  we  thereby  have  communion 
with  a  wicked  man  in  the  worship  of  God,  and  cause  him 
to  take  the  name  of  God  in  vain.  He  was  heard  before  all 
the  ministers,  and  very  clearly  confuted.  Mr.  Endicott 
was  at  first  of  the  same  opinion,  but  he  gave  place  to  the 
truth.  Vol.  i.  p.  157. 

We  may  repeat,  here,  what  ought  to  be  constantly  borne 
in  mind,  that  the  statements  of  Mr.  Williams'  opinions  come, 
not  from  himself,  but  from  his  opponents.  We  need  not 
insist  on  the  liability  to  mistake,  in  cases  where  a  man's 
sentiments  are  thus  disjoined  from  all  those  explanations 
and  arguments  with  which  he  would  himself  have  accom- 
panied them.  In  the  present  case,  we  are  not  informed  of 
the  precise  views  of  Mr.  Williams  respecting  oaths. t     He 

*  That  is,  April  30.  Winthrop  adopted,  a  few  months  before,  this 
mode  of  denoting  time.  It  seems  to  have  arisen  from  a  desire  to 
avoid  the  Roman  nomenclature,  as  heathenish.  Perhaps  an  aversion 
to  the  Romish  church  had  a  share  in  producing  the  change.  The 
custom  continued  for  more  than  fifty  years,  when  it  was  gradually 
abandoned,  except  by  the  Friends,  or  Quakers,  and  Hutchinson 
thinks,  that  the  popular  prejudice  against  them  hastened  the  decline 
of  the  custom.  The  months  were  called  1st,  2d,  &c.  beginning  with 
March,  and  the  days  of  the  week  were  designated  in  the  same  way. 

t  Since  these  remarks  were  written,  the  author  has  found  in  Mr. 
Williams'  " Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's,"  an ''Appendix  as 
touching  oaths,  a  query."  This  Appendix  is  as  follows  :  ''Although 
it  be  lawful  (in  case)  for  Christians  to  invocate  the  name  of  the  Most 
High  in  swearing;  yet  since  it  is  a  part  of  his  holy  worship,  and 
therefore  proper  unto  such  as  are  his  true -worshippers  in  spirit  and 
in  truth  ;  and  persons  may  as  well  be  forced  unto  any  part  of  the 
worship  of  God  as  unto  this,  since  it  ought  not  to  be  used  but  most 
solemnly,  and  in  solemn  and  weighty  cases,  and  (ordinarily)  in  such 
as  are  not  otherwise  determinable ;  since  it  is  the  voice  of  the  two 
great  lawgivers  from  God,  Moses  and  Christ  Jesus,  that  in  the 
mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses  (not  swearing)  every  word  shall 
stand :  Whether  the  enforcing  of  oaths  and  spiritual  covenants  upon 
a  nation,  promiscuously,  and  the  constant  enforcing  of  all  persons 
to  practise  the  worship  in  the  most  trivial  and  common  cases  in  all 
courts  (together  with  the  ceremonies  of  book  and  holding  up  the 
hand,  &c.)  be  not  a  prostituting  of  the  holy  name  of  the  Most  High: 
to  every  unclean  lip,  and  that  on  slight  occasions,  and  a  taking  of  it 
by  millions,  and  so  many  millions  of  times  in  vain,  and  whether  it 
be  not  a  provoking  of  the  eyes  of  his  jealousy  who  hath  said,  that  he 
will  not  hold  him  (what  him  or  them  soever)  guiltless,  that  taketii 


66  MEMOIROF 

had  taken  the  freeman's  oath  in  1631.  Many  others  have 
entertained  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  oaths,  in  any  case, 
and  our  laws  allow  an  individual,  who  feels  these  scruples, 
to  substitute  an  affirmation.  The  unlawfulness  of  all  oaths 
might  be  plausibly  argued,  from  the  words  of  our  Saviour, 
Matthew,  v.  34,  and  from  those  of  the  Apostle  James,  v.  12. 
On  this  ground,  however,  they  would  be  equally  unlawful 
to  all  men,  and  the  distinction  which  Mr.  Williams  is  said 
to  have  made  between  Christians  and  unregenerate  men 
could  not  be  sustained.  If,  however,  an  oath  were  consider- 
ed, as  he  viewed  it,  as  a  religious  act,  implying  devout 
reverence  for  the  Supreme  Being,  a  fear  of  His  displeasure 
and  desire  of  His  favor,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  show  how  an 
irreligious  man  can  sincerely  take  an  oath.  Mr.  Williams 
had  probably  seen  oaths  taken  in  England  with  such  scan- 
dalous levity,  and  used  for  purposes  so  iniquitous,  as  to 
awaken  in  his  mind  a  strong  aversion  to  their  being  admin- 
istered indiscriminately  to  the  pious  and  the  profane.  We 
may,  nevertheless,  admit,  that  he  was  unnecessarily  scru- 
pulous on  this  point,  without  impeaching  either  his  piety  or 
his  judgment.  The  ministers  seem  to  have  been  satisfied 
with  their  success  in  confuting  him.  It  is  usual  for  dis- 
putants to  claim  the  victory.  Perhaps  if  Mr.  Williams  had 
recorded  the  event,  he  might  have  told  us  of  the  unimpaired 
vigor  of  his  arguments.  We  have  reason  to  believe,  how- 
ever, that  the  offensiveness  of  Mr.  Williams'  opinions  Re- 
specting oaths  consisted  not  so  much  in  his  abstract  ob- 
jections to  their  use,  as  in  his  opposition  to  the  new  oath 

his  name  in  vain."  It  seems,  from  this  paragraph,  that  he  consider- 
ed taking  an  oath  to  be  an  act  of  worship ;  that  a  Christian  might 
take  one  on  proper  occasions,  though  not  for  trivial  causes;  that  an 
irrehgious  man  could  not  sincerely  perform  this  act  of  worship  ;  and 
that  no  man  ought  to  be  forced  to  perform  this  act,  any  more  than 
any  other  act  of  worship.  His  own  practice  was  agreeable  to  his 
theory.  He  says,  in  his  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,  (Ap- 
pendix, pp.  59,  60)  ''cases  have  befallen  myself  in  the  Chancery  in 
England,  &c.  of  the  loss  of  great  sums,  which  I  chose  to  bear, 
through  the  Lord's  help,  rather  than  yield  to  \he  formality  (then  and 
still  in  use)  in  God's  worship,  [alluding,  perhaps,  to  the  use  of  a 
book,  holding  up  the  hand,  &c.]  though  I  offered  to  swear,  in  weighty 
cases,  by  the  name  of  God,  as  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  to  attest 
or  call  God  to  witness ;  and  the  judges  told  me  they  would  rest  in 
my  testimony  and  way  of  swearing,  but  they  could  not  dispense  with 
me  without  an  act  of  Parliament." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  67 

of  fidelity  which  the  Court  thought  proper  to  require  of  the 
citizens.  Mr.  Cotton*  states  the  case  thus:  *'The  magis- 
trates and  other  members  of  the  General  Court,  upon  intel- 
ligence of  some  Episcopal  and  malignant  practices  against 
the  country,  made  an  order  of  Court,  to  take  trial  of  the 
fidelity  of  the  people,  not  by  imposing  upon  them,  but  by 
offering  to  them,  an  oath  of  fidelity,  that  in  case  any  should 
refuse  to  take  it,  they  might  not  betrust  them  with  place  of 
public  charge  and  command.  This  oath,  when  it  came 
abroad,  he  (Mr.  Williams)  vehemently  withstood,  and  dis- 
suaded sundry  from  it,  partly  because  it  was,  he  said, 
Christ's  prerogative  to  have  his  office  established  by  an 
oath ;  partly  because  an  oath  v.as  part  of  God's  worship, 
and  God's  worship  was  not  to  be  put  upon  carnal  persons, 
as  he  conceived  many  of  the  people  to  be.  So  the  Court 
was  forced  to  desist  from  that  proceeding." 

The  reasons  assigned  by  Mr.  Cotton  for  Mr.  Williams' 
opposition  to  the  oath  are,  we  suspect,  not  all  the  reasons 
which  really  moved  him  to  this  course.  He  probably 
viewed  the  act  of  the  Court  in  absolving  the  citizens  from 
the  oath  which  they  had*  already  taken,  and  substituting 
another,  as  an  illegal  assumption  of  power.  It  might  be 
understood  to  claim  for  the  Court  an  authority  superior  to 
the  charter,  for  it  omitted  the  clause  of  the  former  oath, 
which  required  of  the  subject  obedience  to  laws  which 
should  be  "lawfully"  made  by  the  Court,  and,  instead  of 
it,  obliged  men  to  swear  to  submit  to  the  "wholesome''  reg- 
ulations which  might  be  established.  As  the  charter  pro- 
hibited the  passage  of  laws  contrary  to  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land, the  first  oath  bound  the  citizen  to  obey  the  Court 
only  while  they  adhered  to  the  charter ;  but  the  new  oath 
required  submission  to  all  the  "wholesome"  acts  of  the 
government,  who  were,  of  course,  the  sole  judges  of  the 
wholesomeness  of  their  own  measures.  Mr.  Cotton  says, 
that  the  oath  was  only  offered,  not  imposed,  but  it  was,  by 
a  subsequent  act  of  the  Court,  enforced  on  every  man 
above  the  ,age  of  sixteen  years,  on  penalty  of  punishment  at 
the  discretion  of  the  Court. t 

To  this  oath,  under  such  circumstances,  Mr.  Williams, 
as   a   friend  of  liberty,  was   opposed.     He  would  not  re- 

*  Tenet  Washed,  pp.  28,  29.  t  Backus,  vol.  i,  p.  62. 


68  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

nounce  an  oath  which  he  had  taken,  and  substitute  another, 
which  bound  him  to  obey  whatever  laws  the  magistrates 
might  deem  wholesome.  The  reason  assigned  for  the  new 
oath,  moreover,  was  to  guard  against  "Episcopal  and  ma- 
lignant practices."  This  gave  it  the  appearance  of  a  law 
to  restrain  liberty  of  conscience ;  and  Mr.  Williams'  prin- 
ciples were  totally  opposed  to  any  measure  which  tended  to 
that  result,  however  specious  its  professed  object  might  be. 

If  these  views  are  correct,  Mr.  Williams'  opposition  to 
oaths  in  this  case  resolves  itself  into  an  inflexible  adherence 
to  his  great  doctrine  of  unfettered  religious  liberty  ;  a  doc- 
trine which,  more  than  any  thing  else,  drew  upon  him  the 
jealousy  and  dislike  of  the  magistrates  and  the  clergy. 

In  July,  he  was  again  summoned  to  Boston. 

''  1635,  Mo.  5,  8.  At  the  General  Court,  Mr.  Williams, 
of  Salem,  was  summoned  and  did  appear.  It  was  laid  to 
his  charge,  that  being  under  question  before  the  magistracy 
and  churches  for  divers  dangerous  opinions,  viz  :  1.  that 
the  magistrate  ought  not  to  punish  the  breach  of  the  first 
table,  otherwise  than  in  such  cases  as  did  disturb  the  civil 
peace  ;  2.  that  he  ought  not  to  tender  an  oath  to  an  unre- 
generate  man ;  3.  that  a  man  ought  not  to  pray  with  such, 
though  wife,  child,  &:.c. ;  4.  that  a  man  ought  not  to  give 
thanks  after  the  sacrament,  nor  after  meat,  &c. ;  and  that 
the  other  churches  were  about  to  write  to  the  church  of 
Salem  to  admonish  him  of  these  errors ;  notwithstanding, 
the  church  had  since  called  him  to  [the]  office  of  teacher. 
Much  debate  was  about  these  things.  The  said  opinions 
were  adjudged  by  all,  magistrates  and  ministers,  (who  were 
desired  to  be  present)  to  be  erroneous  and  very  dangerous, 
and  that  the  calling  of  him  to  office,  at  that  time,  was 
judged  a  great  contempt  of  authority.  So,  in  fine,  time 
was  given  to  him  and  the  church  of  Salem  to  consider 
of  these  things  till  the  next  General  Court,  and  then  either 
to  give  satisfaction  to  the  Court,  or  else  to  expect  the  sen- 
tence ;  it  being  professedly  declared  by  the  ministers  (at 
the  request  of  the  Court  to  give  their  advice)  that  he  who 
should  obstinately  maintain  such  opinions  (whereby  a 
church  might  run  into  heresy,  apostacy,  or  tyranny,  and 
yet  the  civil  magistrate  could  not  intermeddle)  were  to  be 
removed,  and  that  the  other  churches  ought  to  request  the 
magistrates  so  to  do."     Vol.  i.  p.  162. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS,  6?> 

The  first  t\\''o  of  these  charges  have  been  considered.  It 
will  be  observed,  that  the  Governor  has  candidly  acknowl- 
edged, that  Mr.  Williams  allowed  it  to  be  right  for  the  civil 
magistrate  to  punish  breaches  of  the  first  table,  when  they 
disturbed  the  civil  peace.  This  fact  exempts  him  from 
the  charge  of  opposition  to  the  civil  authority. 

The  third  charge,  if  it  is  a  true  representation  of  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Williams,  shows  that  his  judgment  in  this 
particular  was  biased,  by  an  idea  of  the  impropriety  of 
uniting  in  religious  worship  with  those  who  cannot  cordially 
participate  in  the  service.  He  thus  carried  to  an  extreme- 
a  principle,  which  the  state  of  things  in  England  had  fre- 
quently called  into  exercise.  He  probably  recollected,  that 
the  book  of  common  prayer  implied  that  all  present  adopt- 
ed the  petitions  as  their  own  ;  and  as  he  knew  that  many 
who  pretended  to  join  in  the  worship  were  notoriously 
profligate,  he  might  be  impelled  to  the  opposite  error.* 

*In  his  '•  Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's."  he  says,  on  this 
subject,  '•  -vve  may  hinder  and  harden  poor  souls  against  repentance, 
•when,  by  fellowship  in  prayer  with  them  as  with  saints,  we  per- 
suade them  of  their  [already]  blessed  state  of  Christianity,  and  that 
they  are  new  born,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  living  God.'"  p.  22. 
This  argument  is  unsound,  beca,use  we  do  not  "  hold  fellowship  " 
with  the  impenitent,  by  praying  in  their  presence  ;  but  the  argument 
shows  Mr.  Williams'  conscientious  regard  for  the  welfare  of  men. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  here,  that  while  Winthrop  states  this 
charge  as  a  general  proposition,  Kubbard  (207)  and  Morton  (153) 
a,33ert,  that  Mr.  Williams  refused  to  "  pray  or  give  thanks  at  meals 
with  his  own  wife  or  any  of  his  family."  This  v/as  probably  an  in- 
ference from  Mr.  Williams'  abstract  doctrine.  Several  of  the  charges 
against  him  might  be  thus  traced  to  the  disposition  to  draw  infer- 
ences. -  A  curious  instance  is  given  by  Cotton  Mather,  (Magnalia,. 
b.  vii.  ch.  ii.  §  G.)  Mr.  William.s,  he  says,  '-'complained  in  open 
Court,  that  he  was  wronged  by  a  slanderous  report,  as  if  he  held  it 
unlawful  for  a  father  to  call  upon  his  child  to  eat  his  meat.  Mr. 
Hooker,  then  present,  being  moved  hereupon  to  speak  something, 
replied,  '-Why,  you  will  say  as  much  again,  if  you  stand  to  your 
own  principles,  or  be  driven  to  say  nothing  at  all."  Mr.  Williams 
expressing  his  confidence  that  he  should  never  say  it,  Mr.  Hooker 
proceeded :  ''  If  it  be  unlawful  to  call  an  unregenerate  person  to 
pray,  since  it  is  an  action  of  God's  worship,  then  it  is  unlawful  for 
your  unregenerate  child  to  pray  for  a  blessing  upon  his  own  meat. 
If  it  be  unlawful  for  him  to  pray  for  a  blessing  upon  his  moat,  it  is 
unlawful  for  him  to  eat  it,  for  it  is  sanctified  by  prayer,  and  without 
prayer  unsanctified.  (1  Tim.  iv.  4,5.)  If  it  be  unlawful  for  him  to 
eat  it,  it  is  unlawful  for  you  to  call  upon  him  to  eat  it,  for  it  is  un- 
lawful for  you  to  call  upon  hira  to  sin.''  Our  fathers  were  adepts  in 
7 


70  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

The  fourth  charge  seems  too  frivolous  for  notice.  What 
right  have  men  to  insist  on  ceremonies  which  the  Bible 
does  not  enjoin,  and  which  are  in  themselves  indiiferent  ? 
If,  as  is  not  improbable,*  there  was  an  attempt  to  intro- 
duce among  the  churches  a  uniformity  touching  these  little 
observances,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Mr.  Williams  resisted 
them.  He  had  seen  too  much  of  this  system  in  England, 
to  be  willing  to  submit  to  it  in  America. 

As  the  Salem  church  adhered  to  Mr.  Williams,  notwith- 
standing the  well-known  displeasure  of  the  magistrates  and 
the  clergy,  a  singular  mode  of  punishing  them  for  their 
contumacy  was  soon  adopted.  Three  days  after  the  ses- 
sion of  the  Court  just  mentioned,  we  are  told  by  Winthrop, 
that  the  "  Salem  men  had  preferred  a  petition  at  the  last 
General  Court,  for  some  land  in  Marblehead  Neck,  which 
they  did  challenge  as  belonging  to  their  town  ;  but,  because 
they  had  chosen  Mr.  Williams  their  teacher,  while  he  stood 
under  question  of  authority,  and  so  oifered  contempt  to  the 
magistrates,  6lc.  their  petition  was  refused  tiIl,&/C.  Upon 
this  the  church  of  Salem  write  to  other  churches  to  admon- 
ish the  magistrates  of  this  as  a  heinous  sin,  and  likewise 
the  deputies ;  for  which,  at  the  next  General  Court,  their 
deputies  v/ere  not  received  until  they  should  give  satisfac- 
tion about  the  letter."     Vol.  i.  p.  164. 

Here  is  a  candid  avowal,  that  justice  was  refused  to 
Salem,  on  a  question  of  civil  right,  as  a  punishment  for  the 
conduct  of  the  church  and  pastor.  A  volume  could  not 
more  forcibly  illustrate  the  danger  of  a  connection  between 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power.  The  land,  in  question, 
was    granted,    after    Mr.    Williams    was   banished.       The 


loo-ic.  Mr.  Hooker's  syllogisms  do  not  now  seem  very  con^'incing', 
but  they  must  have  puzzled  Mr.  Williams,  if  he  held  the  notions  as- 
cribed to  him.  Accordingly,  Cotton  Matlicr  adds,  that  '•  Mr.  Wil- 
liams chose  to  hold  his  peace,  rather  tlian  to  make  any  answer.'' 
Wc  may  wonder,  nevertheless,  that  Mr.  Williams  has  not  been  ac- 
cused of  starving  his  children,  to  the  horror  of  succeeding  genera- 
tions ! 

*  The  Court,  in  March,  1(534-5,  passed  an  act,  "  entreating  of  the 
brethren  and  elders  of  every  church  within  their  jurisdiction,  that 
they  will  consult  and  advise  of  one  uniform,  order  of  discipline  in 
the  churches,  agreeable  to  the  Scriptures,  and  then  to  consider  how 
far  the  magistrates  are  bound  to  interpose  for  the  preservation  of  that 
uniformity  and  the  peace  of  the  churches." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  71 

postponement  was  evidently  designed,  and  probably  had 
some  effect,  to  induce  the  people  of  Salem  to  consent  to 
their  pastor's  removal. 

The  church  at  Salem  felt  this  to  be  a  flagrant  wrong, 
and  they  naturally  wrote  to  the  other  churches,  to  warn 
them  of  this  dangerous  attack  upon  their  liberty,  and  to  re- 
quest them  to  admonish  the  magistrates,  as  members  of 
the  churches,  of  the  criminality  of  their  conduct.  It  is 
difficult  to  see,  why  the  church  at  Salem  were  not  fully 
justified  in  this  procedure. 

The  health  of  Mr.  Williams  failed  under  the  pressure  of 
his  trials  and  duties.  He  declared,  ''  that  his  life  was  in 
danger,  by  his  excessive  labors,  preaching  thrice  a  week, 
by  labors  night  and  day  in  the  field;  and  by  travels  night 
and  day,  to  go  and  come  from  the  Court."  We  need  not 
be  surprised,  therefore,  at  the  next  notice  of  him  by  Win- 
throp,  under  the  date  of  August  16  : 

"  Mr.  Williams,  pastor  of  Salem,  being  sick  and  not  able 
to  speak,  wrote  to  his  church  a  protestation,  that  he  could 
not  communicate  with  the  churches  in  the  Bay ;  neither 
would  he  communicate  with  them,  except  they  would  refuse 
communion  with  the  rest :  but  the  whole  church  was  griev- 
ed herewith."    Vol.  i.  p.  166. 

Solomon  has  said,  that  "  oppression  maketh  a  wise  man 
mad  ;"*  and  it  is  not  wonderful  that  it  should  impel  a  sick 
man  to  write  such  a  letter  as  the  one  here  alluded  to.  Mr. 
Williams  felt  deeply  that  he  had  been  injured,  and  that  the 
spiritual  fellowship  between  him  and  the  churches  had 
sufiered  a  melancholy  interruption.  He  therefore  declared, 
that  he  could  not  commune  with  them,  and  he  insisted  that 
the  church  in  Salem  should  refuse  such  a  communion.  In 
this  conduct  he  was  doubtless  wrong,  yet  who  will  venture 
to  say,  that  if  he  had  been  placed  in  the  situation  of  Mr. 
Williams,  he  would  have  maintained  a  more  subdued  spirit? 

Matters  now  rapidly  approached  a  crisis.  The  magis- 
trates  punished  with  rigor  the  offence  of  the  Salem  church, 
or  rather  of  Mr.  Williams,  in  writing  the  letter  to  the  other 
churches.  Mr.  Endicott  was  committed,  for  justifying  that 
letter,  and  was  not  discharged,  till  he  acknowledged  his  of- 
fence. The  following  extract  from  the  records  of  the  Court 
shows  a  case,  which  savours  much  of  the  English  Court  of 

*  Ecclesiastes,  vii.  7. 


72  MEMOIR     OP 

High  Commission :  "  Mr,  Samuel  Shatpe  is  enjoined  to 
appear  at  the  next  Particular  Court,  to  answer  for  the  letter 
that  came  from  the  church  of  Salem,  as  also  to  bring  the 
names  of  those  that  will  justify  the  same,  or  else  to  acknow- 
ledge his  offence,  under  his  own  hand,  for  his  own  par- 
ticular."* 

In  October,  Mr.  Williams  was  called  before  the  Court  for 
the  last  time : 

"At  this  General  Court,  Mr. Williams,  the  teacher  of  Salem, 
was  again  con  vented,  and  all  the  ministers  in  the  Bay  being 
desired  to  be  present,  he  was  charged  with  the  said  two  let- 
ters, that  to  the  churches,  complaining  of  the  magistrates 
for  injustice,  extreme  oppression,  &c.  and  the  other  to  his 
own  church,  to  persuade  them  to  renounce  communion 
with  all  the  churches  in  the  Bay,  as  full  of  antichristian 
pollution,  &c.  He  justified  both  these  letters,  and  main- 
tained all  his  opinions;  and,  being  offered  further  conference 
or  disputation,  and  a  month's  respite,  he  chose  to  dispute 
presently.  So  Mr.  Hooker  was  chosen  to  dispute  with  him, 
but  could  not  reduce  him  from  any  of  his  errors.  So,  the 
next  morning,  the  Court  sentenced  him  to  depart  out  of  our 
jurisdiction  within  six  weeks,  all  the  ministers,  save  one, 
approving  the  sentence  ;  and  his  own  church  had  him  under 
question  also  for  the  same  cause  ;  and  he,  at  his  return  home, 
refused  communion  with  his  own  church,  who  openly  dis- 
claimed his  errors,  and  wrote  an  humble  submission  to  the 
magistrates,  acknowledging  their  fault  in  joining  with  Mr. 
Williams  in  that  letter  to  the  churches  against  them,"  &/C. 
Vol.  i.  p.  171. 

The  sentence  was  in  these  terms  :  "  Whereas  Mr.  Roger 
Williams,  one  of  the  elders  of  the  church  of  Salem,  hath 
broached  and  divulged  divers  new  and  dangerous  opinions, 
against  the  authority  of  magistrates ;  as  also  writ  letters  of 
defamation,  both  of  the  magistrates  and  churches  here,  and 
that  before  any  conviction,  and  yet  maintaineth  the  same 
without  any  retractation ;  it  is  therefore  ordered,  that  the 
said  Mr.  Williams  shall  depart  out  of  this  jurisdiction  within 
six  weeks  now  next  ensuing,  which,  if  he  neglect  to  perform, 
it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  Governor  and  two  of  the  magis- 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  167,  Note. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  "^S 

trates  to  send  him  to  some  place  out  of  this  jurisdiction,  not 
to  return  any  more  without  license  from  the  Court."* 

The  conduct  of  the  church  at  Salem  is  to  be  ascribed  to 
the  severe  measures  of  the  magistrates,  rather  than  to  hos- 
tility to  Mr,  Williams.  Many  of  them  accompanied  or  fol- 
lowed him  in  his  exile.  Neal,  in  his  History  of  New-Eng- 
land, acknowledges,  that  when  he  was  banished,  "  the  whole 
town  of  Salem  was  in  an  uproar,  for  he  was  esteemed  an 
honest,  disinterested  man,  and  of  popular  talents  in  the  pulpit." 

Mr.  Williams  received  permission  to  remain  at  Salem  till 
spring,  but  because  he  would  not  refrain,  in  his  oivn  house ^ 
from  uttering  his  opinions,  the  Court  resolved  to  send  him 
to  England,  in  order  to  remove,  as  far  as  possible,  the  infec- 
tion of  his  principles.  Happily  for  themselves,  and  for  the 
country,  their  design  was  defeated. 

"11  mo.  January.  The  Governor  and  Assistants  met  at 
Boston  to  consider  about  Mr.  Williams,  for  that  they  were 
credibly  informed,  that,  notwithstanding  the  injunction  laid 
upon  him  (upon  the  liberty  granted  him  to  stay  till  the 
spring,)  not  to  go  about  to  draw  others  to  his  opinions,  he 
did  use  to  entertain  company  in  his  house,  and  to  preach  to 
them,  even  of  such  points  as  he  had  been  censured  for  ;  and 
it  was  agreed  to  send  him  into  England  by  a  ship  then  ready 
to  depart.  The  reason  w^as,  because  he  had  drawn  above 
twenty  persons  to  his  opinion,  and  they  were  intended  to 
erect  a  plantation  about  the  Narraganset  Bay,  from  whence 
the  infection  would  easily  spread  into  these  churches,  (the 
people  being  many  of  them  much  taken  with  the  apprehen- 
sion of  his  godliness.)  Whereupon  a  warrant  was  sent  to 
him  to  come  presently  to  Boston  to  be  shipped,  &c.  He 
returned  ans^ver  (and  divers  of  Salem  came  with  it,)  that 
he  could  not  come  without  hazard  of  his  life,  &c.  Where- 
upon a  pinnace  was  sent  with  commission  to  Capt.  Under- 
bill, &c.  to  apprehend  him,  and  carry  him  aboard  the  ship, 
(which  then  rode  at  Nantasket ;)  but,  when  they  came  at 
his  house,  they  found  he  had  been  gone  three  days  before ; 
but  whither  they  could  not  learn. 

"  He  had  so  far  prevailed  at  Salem,  as  many  there,  (espe- 
cially of  devout  women)  did  embrace  his  opinions,  and  se- 

*  Winthrop  places  the  banishment  under  the  date  of  October,  but 
the  Colonial  Records,  (I.  163)  state,  that  it  took  place  November  3, 
1635. 


"74  M  E  M  O  I  R     OF 

parated  from  the  churches,  for  this  cause,  that  some  of  their 
members,  going  into  England,  did  hear  the  ministers  there, 
and  when  they  came  home  the  churches  here  held  com- 
munion with  them."     Vol.  i.  p.  175. 

Mr.  Williams  had  received  notice  of  the  design  of  the 
Court,  and  had  left  Salem,  in  quest  of  a  quiet  refuge 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Narraganset  Bay.  It  appears, 
that  Governor  Winthrop  had  privately  advised  him  to  leave 
the  colony,  as  a  measure,  which  the  public  peace  required, 
and  by  which  the  personal  interests  of  Mr.  Williams  might 
ultimately  be  best  promoted.  The  good  of  the  Indians, 
also,  was  a  motive  which  operated  on  both  their  minds.  Mr. 
Williams  says,  in  a  letter  which  has  already  been  quoted : 
"  It  pleased  the  Most  High  to  direct  my  steps  into  this  Bay,  by 
the  loving  private  advice  of  the  ever  honored  soul,  Mr.  John 
Winthrop,  the  grandfather,  who,  though  he  were  carried 
with  the  stream  for  my  banishment,  yet  he  tenderly  loved 
me  to  his  last  breath."  The  same  fact  is  asserted,  in  the 
letter  to  Major  Mason,*  and  the  advice  of  Governor  Win- 
throp is  ascribed  to  "  many  high,  and  heavenly,  and  public 
ends."  The  friendship  of  the  Governor  was  manifested  on 
various  occasions,  and  he  afterwards  united  with  Mr.  Wil- 
liams in  the  purchase  of  the  island  of  Prudence  in  Narra- 
ganset Bay. 

The  removal,  however,  if  it  might  on  general  grounds 
have  been  expedient,  was  not  now  optional.  Without  con- 
sidering the  justice  or  injustice  of  his  banishment,  there  was 
certainly  great  hardship  in  being  forced  from  his  home  in 
the  middle  of  winter.  His  second  daughter  was  born  in 
the  latter  part  of  October,  1635, f  and  was  consequently  an 
infant  less  than  three  months  old,  while  his  eldest  child  was 
but  a  little  more  than  two  years  of  age.  The  mother  and 
her  two  infants  he  left  behind.  His  house  and  land  at  Salem 
he  mortgaged,  to  raise  money  for  the  supply  of  his  wants. J 


*  See  Appendix  C. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  51G.  He  called  this  daughter  Freeborn.  This 
v^as  in  the  taste  of  the  times.  The  first  three  children  christened  in 
Boston  church  were  named  Joy,  Recompense  and  Pity.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark,  that  the  name  Freeborn  was  given,  while  the  father  was 
the  object  of  v/hat  he  doubtless  thought  oppression.  It  shows  his  in- 
domitable spirit. 
.  t  MSS.  Letter. 


feOGER     WILLIAMS.  76 

With  a  heavy  heart  must  this  exiled  husband  and  father, 
and  this  aifectionate  pastor,  have  parted  from  his  family 
and  flock,  and  plunged  into  the  wilderness,  to  endure  the 
wintry  storms,  and  to  try  the  hospitality  of  the  savages. 

We  have  thus  briefly  examined  the  reasons  assigned  by 
the  mild  and  candid  Winthrop  for  the  expulsion  of  Mr, 
Williams  from  Massachusetts.  We  have  seen,  that  these 
reasons  related  almost  entirely  to  opinions,  which  the  mag- 
istrates thought  to  be  dangerous,  and  which  the  clergy  op- 
posed as  tending  to  schism.  It  is  satisfactory  to  observe,  how- 
ever, that  these  opinions  did  not  refer  to  any  of  the  great 
principles  of  the  Gospel.  The  religious  doctrines  which 
Mr.  Williams  preached  before  his  banishment  were  the  same 
as  those  of  Cotton  and  Hooker.  He  was  not  accused,  while 
at  Plymouth  or  at  Salem,  of  any  deviation  from  the  estab- 
lished principles  of  the  churches,  on  points  of  faith,  much 
less  was  there  any  impeachment  of  his  moral  character.  It 
is  confessed,  by  the  most  bitter  of  his  opponents,  that  both 
at  Plymouth  and  at  Salem,  he  was  respected  and  beloved,  as 
a  pious  man,  and  able  minister. 

What  was  there,  then,  it  may  be  inquired,  in  the  opinions 
of  Mr.  Williams,  which  was  so  offensive  to  the  rulers  in 
church  and  state  ?  His  denial  of  the  right  to  possess  the 
lands  of  the  Indians  without  their  own  consent,  needed  not 
to  disturb  the  colonists,  for  they  purchased  their  lands  from 
the  natives.  His  ideas  of  the  unlawfulness  of  oaths,  and  of 
the  impropriety  of  praying  with  unregenerate  persons,  and 
other  harmless  notions  of  this  kind,  were  surely  too  unim- 
portant to  excite  the  fears  and  provoke  the  ire  of  the  gov- 
ernment. We  are  led  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  cause  of 
Mr.  Williams'  banishment  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  prin- 
ciple which  has  immortalized    his  name,  that  the  civil 

POWER  HAS  NO  JURISDICTION  OVER  THE  CONSCIENCE.      This 

noble  doctrine,  which  the  Scriptures  clearly  teach,  and 
which  reason  itself  proclaims,  was,  at  that  time,  viewed,  by 
most  men,  to  be  as  heterodox,  in  morals,  as  the  Copernican 
theory  was  considered  by  the  Inquisition  to  be  false  in  philos- 
ophy ;  and  he  who  maintained  it  was  liable  to  the  fate  of  Ga- 
lileo. The  Papists  abhorred  it,  for  it  would  have  subverted 
the  Papal  throne.  The  English  Church  rejected  it,  for  it 
would  have  wrested  from  the  hierarchy  its  usurped  autho- 
rity, and  led  the  Church  away  from  the  throne  of  an  earthly 


t6  M  E  M  O  I  R     OF 

monarch  to  the  footstool  of  the  King  of  kings,  as  hei 
only  head  and  sovereign.  The  Puritans  themselves  dis- 
owned it,  for  they  w^ere  so  firmly  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
their  doctrines,  that  they  deemed  him,  who  was  so  obstinate 
as  not  to  embrace  them, to  be  worthy  of  punishment  for  acting 
in  opposition  to  his  own  conscience.*  They  refused  to  con- 
form to  the  ceremonies  of  the  English  Church,  but  it  was 
because  they  believed  those  ceremonies  to  be  idolatrous,  and 
not  because  they  denied  to  men  the  power  to  enforce  the 
belief  of  doctrines  and  the  practice  of  rites.  They  opposed 
the  Prelates,  but  they  believed  that  a  similar  sway  might 
be  safely  intrusted  to  their  own  hands.  They  resisted  and 
for  a  while  triumphed  over  the  Lords  Bishops,  but  they  for- 
got that  the  despotism  of  the  Lords  Brethren,  asBlackstone 
termed  them,  might  be  quite  as  intolerable.  They  did  not 
understand  the  nature  of  that  liberty  which  the  Gospel  be- 
stows. They  were  misled  by  the  analogies  which  they  drew 
from  the  Mosaic  institutions,  and  felt  it  to  be  their  duty 
to  extirpate  heresy,  with  as  unsparing  rigor,  as  the  Jews  were 
required  to  exercise  against  those  who  despised  or  violated 
their  ritual. 

The  character  of  the  Puritans  has  been  greatly  misun- 
derstood on  this  point,  and  there  has  been  much  common- 
place declamation  respecting  their  bigotry  and  inconsis- 
tency in  persecuting  others,  after  having  suffered  persecu- 
tion themselves.  But  a  candid  mind,  which  understands 
their  principles,  will  not,  while  it  must  lament  and  condemn 
their  conduct,  use  the  language  of  harsh  censure.  They 
were  so  far  from  believing,  that  liberty  of  conscience  in  re- 
ligious concerns  ought  to  be  extended  to  all  men,  that  they 
regarded  toleration  as  a  crime.  They  argued,  that  they  ought 
to  promote  truth,  and  oppose  error,  by  all  the  methods  in 
their  power.  If  they  were  able  to  suppress  false  doctrines, 
it  was,  they  believed,  a  solemn  duty  to  God  to  employ  force, 
if  necessary,  for  their  suppression.  They  thought,  that  he 
who  permitted  error  to  be  believed  and  preached,  was 
chargeable  with  a  participation  in  the  guilt.  Intolerance 
became,  in  their  view,  a  paramount  duty  to  God  and  to  the 
heretic  himself;   and  the  greater  their  love  of  God   and  of 


*  This  is  the  ground  on  which  Mr.  Cotton   himself  justified  the 
punishment  of  heretics.     See  the  "  Bloody  Tenet." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  77 

truth,  the  greater  was  their  zeal  to  extirpate,  with  a  strong 
hand,  every  noxious  weed  from  the  garden  of  the  Lord.* 
It  was  not,  therefore,  a  bigoted  preference  merely  for  their 
own  views  which  made  them  persecute  others,  but  a  con- 
viction that  they  only  embraced  the  truth,  and  that  all  op- 
posing doctrines  were  pernicious,  and  must  not  be  allowed. 
It  was  not,  in  their  judgment,  inconsistent  to  act  thus  to- 
wards others,  after  having  themselves  endured  persecution ; 
for  they  regarded  themselves  as  having  been  sufferers  for 
the  truth,  and  they  were  urged,  by  these  very  sufferings,  to 
be  more  faithful  in  upholding  that  truth,  and  suppressing  what 
they  deemed  to  be  error.  It  is  due  to  the  Pilgrims  to  re- 
member, that  they  acted  from  principles,  erroneous  certainly, 
and  deplorable  in  their  effects,  but  sincerely  adopted  and 
cherished  in  hearts  which,  nevertheless,  glowed  with  love  to 
God.  The  grand  doctrine  of  liberty  of  conscience  was 
then  a  portentous  novelty,  and  it  was  the  glory  of  Roger 
Williams,  that  he,  in  such  an  age,  proclaimed  it,  defended 
it,  suffered  for  it,  and  triumphantly  established  it. 

The   principles   of  Roger  Williams   stood  in  the  atti- 

*  "  About  the  same  time  that  Bossuet,  the  most  illustrious  champion 
of  the  Church  of  Rome,  was  engaged  in  maintaining,  with  all  the 
force  of  his  overwhelming  eloquence,  and  inexhaustible  ingenuity, 
that  the  sovereign  was  bound  to  use  his  authority  in  extirpating  false 
religions  from  the  state,  the  Scotch  Commissioners  in  London  were 
remonstrating,  in  the  name  of  their  national  Church,  against  the  intro- 
duction of  a  ■'  sinful  and  ungodly  toleration  in  matters  of  religion; ' 
whilst  the  whole  body  of  the  English  Presbyterian  Clergy,  in  their 
official  papers,  protested  against  the  schemes  of  Cromwell's  party,  and 
solemnly  declared,  '  that  they  detested  and  abhorred  toleration.'  '  My 
judgment,'  said  Baxter,  a  man  noted  in  his  day  for  moderation,  •'  I 
have  always  freely  made  known.  I  abhor  unlimited  liberty  or  toler- 
ation of  all.' — '  Toleration.'  said  Edwards,  another  distinguished  di- 
vine, '  will  make  the  kingdom  a  chaos,  a  Babel,  another  Amsterdam, 
a  Sodom,  an  Egypt,  a  Babylon.  Toleration  is  the  grand  work  of  the 
Devil,  his  master-piece,  and  chief  engine  to  uphold  his  tottering  king- 
dom. It  is  the  most  compendious,  ready,  sure  way  to  destroy  all 
religion,  lay  all  waste  and  bring  in  all  evil.  It  is  a  most  transcendent, 
catholic  and  fundamental  evil.  As  original  sin  is  the  fundamental 
sin,  having  the  seed  and  spawn  of  all  sins  in  it,  so  toleration  hath  all 
errors  in  it,  and  all  evils.'  Verplank's  Discourses,  pp.  23,  24.  Simi- 
lar language  was  used  in  this  country.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Ward,  in  his 
Simple  Cobler  of  Agawam,  written  in  1647,  utters  his  detestation  of 
toleration,  and  says  :  '•  He  that  is  willhig  to  tolerate  any  religion,  or 
decrepant  way  of  religion,  besides  his  own,  unless  it  be  in  matters 
merely  indifferent,  either  doubts  of  his  own,  or  is  not  sincere  in  it." 


78  M  E  M  O  I  R     OF 

tude  of  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  system  which 
the  Pilgrims  had  established  in  New-England.  They  could 
not  blend  with  it.  They  came  into  collision  with  it,  at 
every  point.  We  have  accordingly  seen,  that  Mr.  Williams 
was  continually  at  variance  with  the  government,  because 
their  measures  were  adjusted  to  their  settled  policy,  but  were 
repugnant  to  his  great  doctrine.  There  could  be  no  peace 
between  them,  unless  he  yielded,  or  they  abandoned  their 
system.  He  was  firm,  and  they  were  unconvinced.  They 
possessed  the  power,  and  they  banished  him ;  not  so  much 
to  punish  him,  as  to  remove  from  the  colony  a  man  whose 
doctrines  they  believed  to  be  wrong,  whose  influence  they 
feared,  and  whom  they  could  neither  intimidate  nor  persuade 
to  abandon  his  principles. 

It  is  intimated  by  Dr.  Bentley,*  that  the  rivalry  of  Salem 
and  Boston  had  some  effect  to  induce  a  rigorous  treatment 
of  Mr.  Williams.  He  had  great  influence  in  Salem.  He 
had  drawn  thither  some  persons  from  Plymouth,  and  it  was, 
perhaps,  feared,  that  his  popularity  gave  an  importance  to 
Salem,  which  might  be  prejudicial  to  the  metropolis. 

It  is  due  to  the  principal  actors  in  these  scenes,  to  record 
the  fact,  of  which  ample  evidence  exists,  that  personal 
animosity  had  little,  if  any,  share  in  producing  the  sentence 
of  banishment.  Towards  Mr.  Williams,  as  a  Christian 
and  a  minister,  there  was  a  general  sentiment  of  respect. 
Governor  Winthrop  was  a  generous  friend  to  him  throughout 
his  life;  and  it  is  asserted  by  Dr.  Bentley,  that  "had 
Governor  Winthrop  been  at  liberty  to  concur  with  Endicott, 
and  not  have  been  deterred  by  the  competition  of  Boston 
and  Salem,  Williams  would  have  lived  and  died  at  Salem." 

Mr.  Ilaynes  was  Governor  at  the  time  Mr.  Williams  was 
banished,  and  Mr.  Winthrop  lost  for  a  while  his  salutary 
influence  over  the  public  councils.!  He  endeavored,  at  a 
subsequent  period,  to  procure  a  repeal  of  the  sentence  of 

*  1  His.  Col.  vi.  p.  248.  ~ 

t  Mr.  Haynes  was  preceded  by  Mr.  Dudley,  who  was  a  stern  man, 

and  particularly  opposed  to  toleration.     He  died  soon  after,  with  a 

copy  of  verses  in  his  pocket,  written  with  his  own  hand.     The  two 

following  lines  made  a  part  of  it : 

''  Let  men  of  God  in  court  and  churches  watch 
''  O'er  such  as  do  a  toleration  hatch." 
Mr.    Haynes    also   accused    Governor   Winthrop    as    too    mild, 
Wijithrop,  vol.  i.  p.  178, 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  79 

banishment  against  Mr.  Williams ;  but  a  more  rigid  policy 
prevailed,  and  the  founder  of  Rhode-Island  continued  till 
his  death  an  outlaw  from  Massachusetts. 

Mr.  Cotton  was,  at  that  time,  the  most  powerful  man  in 
the  commonwealth  ;  and  well  did  his  piety,  learning  and 
intrepid  love  of  pure  religion  merit  the  respect  and  affections 
of  the  colonists.  Whatever  share  he  may  have  had  in 
procuring  the  banishment  of  Mr.  Williams,*  it  is  certain, 
that  there  was  no  personal  feud  between  them.  They  had 
been  acquainted  with  each  other  in  England,  and  had  alike 
suffered  from  the  intolerance  of  the  Prelates.  Mr.  Cotton 
sincerely  thought  Mr.  Williams'  principles  wrong,  and 
dangerous  to  the  church  and  the  state.  He  felt  it  to  be 
the  duty  of  the  government  to  protect  the  colony,  by  remov- 
ing from  it  this  source  of  peril.  In  the  controversy  which 
subsequently  arose  between  Mr.  Cotton  and  Mr.  Williams^ 
the  latter  uniformly  spoke  of  Mr.  Cotton  in  the  most 
respectful  terms  ;t  a  circumstance,  which  is  the  more 
remarkable,  because  at  that  day  the  style  of  polemic  dis- 
cussion was  less  decorous  than  it  is  at  the  present  time,  and 
disputants  lavished  upon  each  other,  with  unsparing 
virulence,  the  bitterest  epithets  of  obloquy.  While  we 
lament,  therefore,  that  a  man  of  so  many  admirable  quali- 
ties as  Mr.  Cotton,  was  misled  by  wrong  views  of  religious 
liberty,  and  thus  betrayed  into  intolerance,  we  owe  it  to  his 
honorable  fame  to  remember,that  the  best  men  are  imperfect, 
and  that  no  personal  hostility  inflamed  his  zeal. 

We  may  express  the  verdict,  which,  at  this  distant  period, 
all  calm  and  fair  minds  will,  it  is  presumed,  pronounce: 
that  Mr.  Williams  was  unnecessarily  scrupulous  about 
some  minor  points  of  conduct  and  of  policy,  though  these 
scruples  may  be  candidly  traced  to  the  agitated  condition  of 

"  Mr.  Cotton  denied,  in  his  P^eply  to  the  Bloody  Tenet,  that  he 
had  any  agency  in  the  banishment  of  Mr.  Williams,  but  avowed 
that  he  approved  of  it.  Mr.  Williams  asserts,  '•  Some  gentlemen 
who  consented  to  the  sentence  against  me,  solemnly  testified  with 
tsars,  that  they  did  it  by  the  advice  and  counsel  of  Mr.  Cotton." 
These  two  assertions  may  be  recoijciled,  perhaps,  by  the  remark  of 
Mr.  Cotton,  that  '•  if  he  did  counsel  one  or  two,  it  would  not  argue 
the  act  of  the  government." 

t  In  the  Bloody  Tenet  such  phrases  as  these  are  repeatedly  applied 
to  Mr.  Cotton  :  "  I  speak  with  honorable  respect  for  the  answerer" — 
''  the  worthy  answerer" — "  a  man  incomparably  too  worthy  for  such 
a  service." 


so  MEMOIR    OF 

the  public  mind  in  England  and  America,  and  to  his  own 
delicacy  of  conscience  ;  that  he  may  have  erred  in  main- 
taining his  principles  with  too  little  of  that  meek  patience 
which  he  who  v^-ould  effect  a  reform  in  the  opinions  of  men 
must  possess,  though  candor  will  admit,  that  the  constant 
opposition  which  Mr.  Williams  encountered  might  have 
irritated  a  gentler  spirit  than  his ;  that  his  behavior  to  the 
civil  rulers  was  not  indecorous,  unless  a  firm  opposition  to 
what  he  considered  as  wrong  in  their  measures  might  be 
viewed  as  indecorum,  for  he  yielded  to  their  authority,  in 
^very  point  which  his  conscience  would  allow;  that  his 
private  character  was  pure ;  and  that  the  cause  of  his 
banishment  may  be  found,  in  his  distinguishing  doctrine, 
that  the  civil  power  has  no  control  over  the  religious  opinions 
of  men ;  a  doctrine  which  no  man,  in  oui-  country,  would,  at 
the  present  day,  venture  to  deny.  Mr.  Williams  was 
banished,  therefore,  because  his  spirit  was  too  elevated  and 
enlarged,  for  the  community  in  which  he  lived.  Like 
Aristides,  the  prominent  excellence  of  his  character  was 
the  cause  of  his  banishment. 

But  the  same  impartial  verdict  will  do  justice  to  the 
Pilgrims.  They  felt  it  to  be  not  merely  their  right,  but  their 
duty,  to  protect  their  theocracy  from  persons,  whose 
opinions  or  conduct,  in  their  judgment,  disturbed  its  peace 
or  endangered  its  purity.  They  believed,  that  the  sword 
of  the  magistrate  was  to  be  used  for  the  defence  of  the 
church,  as  in  the  days  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  To  deny 
this  principle,  was  to  subvert  the  foundation  of  their  civil 
and  religious  institutions  ;  and  it  became,  in  their  opinion, 
a  measure  of  self-preservation,  and  of  paramount  duty  to 
<jrod,  to  expel  Mr.  Williams  from  the  colony.  That  the 
grounds  of  this  measure  were  wrong,  will  not  now  be 
disputed  ;  but  we  ought  to  rejoice,  that  we  can  ascribe  it 
to  a  sincere,  though  misdirected,  desire  to  uphold  the 
church,  and  to  advance  the  honor  of  God.  Were  these 
excellent  men  now  alive,  they  would  be  foremost  in  lamenting 
their  own  error,  and  in  vindicating  those  principles  of  reli- 
gious liberty,  for  which  Mr.  Williams  incurred  their  displea- 
sure. 

And  we  may  on  this  occasion,  as  on  many  others,  observe 
the  wonderful  wisdom  of  Divine  Providence,  which  so 
-controls  the  mistakes  and  sins  of  men,  as  to  accomplish  the 


R  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  81 

most  important  results.  The  banishment  of  Mr.  Williams 
contributed  in  the  end  to  his  own  happiness  and  fame. 
Another  colony  was  established,  and  thus  civilization  and 
religion  were  diffused.  And  we  shall  soon  see  how  this 
event,  though  springing  from  wrong  views,  and  producing 
much  immediate  suffering,  was  the  means,  a  few  years  after, 
of  that  interposition  of  Mr,  Williams  between  the  colonists 
and  the  Indians,  which  apparently  rescued  the  whites 
throughout  New-England  from  total  destruction. 


82  MEMOTR     OF 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Numbers,  condition,  language,  rights,  &c.  of  the  Indians  in  New- 
England. 

The  history  of  Roger  Williams  becomes,  from  this  point, 
so  closely  connected  with  that  of  the  Indians,  as  to  make 
it  necessary  to  present  a  brief  sketch  of  their  situation  and 
character.  We  must  confine  our  view  to  those  who  in- 
habited New-England.  Mr.  Williams  himself  has  furnished 
us  with  valuable  aid  in  this  review.  His  Key  to  the  In- 
dian Languages,  though  its  chief  object  was  philology,  pre- 
sents many  interesting  details  respecting  the  habits  and 
general  character  of  the  aborigines. 

The  territory  now  comprehended  within  the  limits  of 
New-England  was  inhabited  by  various  tribes,  the  principal 
of  which  were  the  following  : 

1.  The  Pawtuckets,  whose  territory  extended  from  Sa- 
lem, (Mass.)  to  Portsmouth,  (N.  H,,)  being  bounded  by 
the  ocean  on  the  east,  and  by  the  Nipmuck  country  on  the 
west. 

2.  The  Massachusetts^  who  dwelt  chiefly  about  the  Bay, 
which  bears  their  name. 

3.  The  JPoJcanokets,  who  inhabited  the  territory  of  the 
old  colony  of  Plymouth.  This  tribe  included  several  sub- 
ordinate tribes,  among  whom  were  the  Wampanoags,  the 
particular  tribe  of  Massassoit  and  Philip. 

4.  The  Narraganscts,  who  inhabited  nearly  all  the  ter- 
ritory which  afterwards  formed  the  colony  of  Rhode-Island, 
includinor  the  islands  in  the  Bay,  Block-Island,  and  a  part 
of  Long-Island. 

5.  The  Pf  quods,  who  inhabited  the  southern  part  of  the 
present  State  of  Connecticut.  The  Mohegans  have  been 
considered  as  a  part  of  this  tribe,  inhabiting  the  western 
and  northern  parts  of  Connecticut. 

These  principal  nations  included  many  subordinate  and 
tributary  tribes,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  the  Nip- 
mucks,  who  were  scattered  over  the  western  parts  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  83 

At  a  period  not  long  preceding  the  arrival  of  the 
English,  a  pestilence  prevailed  among  the  natives,  to  so 
frightful  an  extent,  that  some  of  the  tribes  became  nearly 
extinct.  The  Pawtuckets,  who  could  previously  raise  thjee 
thousand  fighting  men,  were  almost  exterminated.  The 
Massachusetts,  who  were  equally  numerous,  were  so  re- 
duced, that  they  could  not,  probably,  in  1630,  have  raised 
a  hundred  men.  The  Pokanokets  were  diminished  to 
about  five  hundred  warriors.*  The  Narragansets  suffered 
little,  and  the  Pequods  were  uninjured  by  the  pestilence. 
Each  of  these  tribes  could  raise  four  thousand  fighting 
men.t  .  The  Pequods  were  the  most  fierce  and  warlike,  and 
the  Narragansets  the  most  civilized,  of  the  New-England 
savages. 

The  Indians,  when  most  numerous,  could  occupy  but  a 
small  portion  of  the  territory.  They  subsisted  chiefly  by 
hunting,  a  mode  of  life  which  is  impracticable  except  where 
extensive  tracts  remain  in  the  wildness  of  nature.  Their 
dwellings  were  usually  built  in  small  villages,  rudely  con- 
structed of  skins  or  bark,  and  easily  removed,  as  their  ca- 
price or  necessities  required.  The  lands  claimed  by  each 
tribe  were  held  in  common.  Each  member  roamed  over  it  at 
his  pleasure,  and  took  the  game  wherever  he  could  find  it. 
Their  agriculture  was  limited  to  the  cultivation  of  Indian 
corn,  tobacco,  and  a  few  esculent  vegetables,  such  as  beans 
and  squashes.  The  agricultural  labor  was  performed  by 
the  women,  with  little  skill,  and  rude  implements.  The 
product  must  consequently  have  been  small.  Game  was 
not  always  plentiful,  or  was  consumed  with  the  improvident 
voracity  of  savages.  They  did  not  understand  the  art  of 
salting  provisions  for  future  use.  They  often  suffered  from 
hunger,  especially  during  the  winter.  They  knew  little  of 
the  medical  art,  and  their  diseases,  though  few,  were  fatal. 
Their  wars  were  frequent  and  sanguinary.  Their  mode  of 
life  was  unfavorable  to  the  rearing  of  children.  For  these 
and  other  reasons,  the  native  tribes  could  never  have  been 
very  numerous  ;  and  if  the  Europeans  had  not  landed  here, 
the  country  over  which  our  free  and  flourishing  States  have 
spread  themselves  would,  it  is  probable,  have  been,  at  this 


*  Baylies'  History  of  Plymouth,  vol.  i.  chap.  4. 
t  2  His.  Col.  vol.  ix.  pp.  235,236. 


84  MEMOIROF 

hour,  a  wilderness,  the  hunting  ground  of  tribes  not  less 
savage,  and,  perhaps,  little  more  numerous,  than  those  whom 
our  fathers  found  here. 

^The  origin  of  the  Indians  is  involved  in  impenetrable 
mystery.  Their  own  traditions  shed  no  light  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  nothing  has  been  found,  in  their  customs  or  lan- 
guages, which  could  lead  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion. 
Imagination  has  been  active  in  tracing  their  connection 
with  different  nations.  The  favorite  theory  of  many  writers 
has  been,  that  they  are  the  descendants  of  the  ten  Jewish 
tribes ;  but  this  opinion  is  founded  on  the  slight  ground  of 
a  few  coincidences  between  the  customs  of  the  Jews  and 
those  of  the  Indians,  and  fancied  resemblances  in  some  of 
their  words  to  terms  in  the  Hebrew  language.  Roger  Wil- 
liams wisely  refrains  from  expressing  any  opinion  on  the 
subject,  except  by  stating  his  confidence  that  the  Indians 
have  sprung  from  Adam  and  Noah.  He  mentions  several 
Indian  customs,  which  resemble  Jewish  rites,  and  says, 
"others  (and  myself)  have  conceived  some  of  their  words 
to  hold  affinity  with  the  Hebrew."  But  he  adds,  "  I  have 
found  a  greater  affinity  of  their  language  with  the  Greek 
tongue."*  The  natives  themselves  believed,  that  their 
great  god  Cautantowit  made  a  man  and  woman  of  a  stone, 
but  disliking  them,  he  broke  them  in  pieces,  and  made 
another  man  and  woman  of  a  tree,  from  whom  all  mankind 
have  descended. f  The  mounds  and  other  monuments 
found  in  the  western  States,  have  been  considered  as  evi- 
dences, that  some  people,  superior  to  the  Indians,  once  in- 
habited that  part  of  the  country.  But  who  they  were,  and 
why  they  disappeared,  we  shall  probably  never  know.  The 
probability  seems  to  be,  that  America  was  first  inhabited 
by  emigrants  from  Asia,  who  crossed  from  the  one  conti- 
nent to  the  other,  at  some  point  near  the  northwestern  ex- 
tremity of  America.  But  conjecture  is  useless.  That  the 
Indians  have  descended  from  Adam,  no  one  who  reverences 
the  Bible  will  doubt.  That  they  are  of  a  kindred  nature 
with  other  men  is  proved,  both  by  their  virtues  and  their 
vices.  Their  minds  are  acknowledged,  by  all  who  have 
known  them  well,  to  be  fully  equal  in  strength  and  acute- 
ness  to  those  of  civilized  men.     That  they  are  capable  of 

*  Key,  Introduction.  t  Key,  ch.  21. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  85 

becoming  pious  Christians,  has  happily  been  demonstrated 
by  many  cheering  examples. 

Their  government  was  very  simple.  A  wild  freedom 
prevailed  among  them,  and  their  roving  habits  did  not  per- 
mit much  control.  They  needed,  however,  some  rulers  in 
peace,  and  leaders  in  war.  Each  tribe  had  one  or  more 
chiefs,  called  sachems,  who  were,  at  first,  chosen  by  the 
tribe,  or  who  gained  the  ascendency,  by  superior  wisdom 
or  courage.  Some  of  these  sachems  inherited  and  trans- 
mitted their  power,  by  hereditary  right;  but  it  is  probable, 
that  the  incumbent  owed  his  authority  more  to  his  personal 
qualities  than  to  his  birth.*  The  sachems  held  nominally 
the  supreme  power,  and  received  tribute,  but  they  were 
controlled  by  the  wisdom  of  the  aged  men,  and  by  the  fierce 
energy  of  the  young  warriors.  "  The  sachems,"  says 
Roger  Williams,!  "  although  they  have  an  absolute  mon- 
archy over  the  people,  yet  they  will  not  conclude  of  aught 
that  concerns  all,  either  laws,  or  subsidies,  or  wars,  unto 
which  the  people  are  averse,  and  by  gentle  persuasion  can- 
not be  brought."  There  were  subordinate  chiefs,  some- 
times called  sagamores,  who  held  a  limited  authority  over 
portions  of  the  tribes.  All  important  questions  were  dis- 
cussed in  councils,  where  eloquence  was  as  fervid  and 
efficacious,  probably,  as  in  the  more  polished  assemblies  of 
Greece. 

The  physical  characteristics  of  the  Indians  were  common 
to  all  the  tribes, — a  bronze  or  copper  color ;  straight,  coarse, 
black  hair,  hazel  eyes,  high  cheek  bones,  and  an  erect  form,  j 
They  possessed  firm,  well  compacted  bodies,  capable  of 
enduring  the  greatest  hardships  and  fatigues,  and  regardless 
of  cold,  while  travelling  in  the  severity  of  winter. §  They 
were  very  active,  and  could  run  vast  distances  with  aston- 
ishing  speed    and  endurance.  ||      They   could    subsist    for 

*  The  remark  of  Tacitus,  respecting  the  GeriTian  tribes,  is  true  of 
the  Indians  :  ''*  Reges  ex  nobilitate,  Duces  ex  virtute  sumunt.  Nee 
Regibus  infinita  aut  libera  potestas,  et  Duces  exemplo  potius  quam 
imperio;  si  prompti,  si  conspicui,  si  ante  aciem  agant,  admiratione 
praesunt."     De  Mor.  Ger.  c.  vii. 

t  Key,  ch.  22.  t  Encyclopaedia  Americana,  art.  Indians. 

§  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  411. 

II  Roger  Williams  says,  *'  I  have  known  many  cf  them  run  be- 
tween fourscore  or  an  hundred  miles  in  a  summer's  day,  and  back 
in  two  days."     Key,  ch.  11 

8* 


86  M  E  M  O  1  R     O  F 

many  days  on  a  little  parched  corn,  pounded  into  meaL 
"  This,"  says  Roger  Williams,  "  is  a  very  wholesome  food, 
which  they  eat  with  a  little  water,  hot  or  cold.  I  have  trav- 
elled with  near  two  hundred  of  them  at  once,  near  one  hun- 
dred miles  through  the  woods,  each  man  carrying  a  little 
basket  of  this  at  his  back,  and  sometimes  in  a  hollow  leather 
girdle  about  his  middle,  sufficient  for  a  man  for  three  or  four 
days.  With  this  ready  provision,  and  their  bow  and  arrow, 
are  they  ready  for  Avar  and  travel  at  a  moment's  warning. 
With  a  spoonful  of  this  meal  and  a  spoonful  of  Avater  from 
the  brook,  have  I  made  many  a  good  dinner  and  supper."* 
When  they  had  leisure,  however,  and  a  plentiful  supply  of 
food,  they  would  compensate  themselves  for  their  absti- 
nence, by  eating  enormous  quantities.  Their  cookery  was 
simple,  their  meat  or  fish  being  boiled  or  roasted,  and  eaten 
without  salt  or  bread.  Indian  corn,  boiled,  either  whole  or 
when  ground,  was  a  common  dish.t  Their  only  drink  was 
water,  until  Europeans  introduced  among  them  the  devour- 
ing curse  of  spirituous  liquors.  Tobacco  was  in  general 
use,  as  a  remedy  for  the  toothache,  and  as  a  stimulant,  of 
which  they  were  as  fond  as  their  civilized  successors. 

Their  diseases  were  few,  but  neglect  or  injudicious  treat- 
ment made  them  very  destructive.  The  chief  remedy  was 
sweating,  in  a  cave  or  cell,  made  hot  with  heated  stones. 
In  this  cell  the  patient  remained  an  hour  or  more,  and  then 
plunged  into  a  river.  Roger  Williams  expended  much 
time  and  money  in  administering  to  the  sick  among  the 
Indians,  and  he  expressed  his  confidence,  that  millions  of 
the  natives  had  perished  for  want  of  suitable  aid.  Infec- 
tious diseases  sometimes  seized  them,  and  made  terrific 
ravages.  The  living  fled,  and  whole  towns  were  deserted. 
The  powaws,,or  priests,  pretended  to  much  skill  in  curing 
diseases ;  but  their  medical  practice  consisted  mainly  of 
hideous  bellowings,  incantations,  and  other  fantastic  cere- 
monies. 

*  Key,  ch.  2. 

t  When  boiled  whole  it  was  called  m^ickquatash,  and  it  is  still 
eaten  in  New-England,  under  the  name  of  suckatash.  The  ground 
corn,  when  boiled,  was  called  Nasaump.  ''From  this/'  says  Roger 
Williams,  "  the  English  call  their  samp,  which  is  the  Indian  corn, 
beaten  and  boiled,  and  eaten  hot  or  cold  with  milk  or  butter.  Avhich 
are  mercies  beyond  the  natives'  plain  water,  and  which  is  a  dish  ex- 
ceeding wholesome  for  the  English  bodies."     Key,  ch.  2. 


tl  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  87 

Their  domestic  habits  v/ere  not  favorable  to  happiness  or 
virtue.  The  marriage  relation  was  formed  with  little  care, 
and  was  dissolved  at  the  pleasure  of  the  husband.  A  man 
might  have  as  many  wives  as  he  chose,  and  was  able  to  pur- 
chase from  their  parents.  The  women  were  treated  with 
rigor.  They  were  forced  to  perform  the  labors  of  agricul- 
ture, and  to  carry  the  provisions  and  packs  of  every  kind, 
in  their  huntings  and  marches.  The  parents  permitted 
their  children  to  grow  up  without  restraint,  and  the  chil*- 
dren  were  undutiful,  and  often  cruel  to  their  parents. 

The  Indians  were  hospitable  to  strangers.  They  were 
grateful  for  benefits,  and  were  firm  friends ;  but  their  re- 
sentment of  injuries  was  fierce  and  implacable.  They 
pursued  an  enemy  with  the  malignity  of  fiends,  and  they 
usually  murdered  their  captives,  with  prolonged  and  shock- 
ing tortures.  They  met  death,  even  when  thus  inflicted, 
with  the  utmost  composure,  disdaining  to  exhibit  any 
symptoms  of  fear  or  pain,  and  often  provoking  their  tor- 
mentors by  scornful  taunts.  They  were  treacherous,  prone 
to  lying,  and  indolent,  except  when  war  or  hunting  roused 
them  to  action.  They  were  fond  of  sports,  and  like  the 
Germans,  as  described  by  Tacitus,  they  were  addicted  to 
gaming. 

They  had  no  commerce,  except  the  sale  of  corn,  skins, 
and  some  other  articles,  to  the  Europeans.  Their  only 
money  consisted  of  shells,  sewed  together  on  strips  of  cloth, 
and  thus  forming  belts  of  various  lengths,  and  different  de- 
grees of  beauty,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  maker.  This 
money,  as  described  by  Roger  Williams,  "  was  of  two  sorts  : 
one  white,  which  they  make  of  the  stem  or  stock  of  the 
psriwincle,  which  they  call  meteauhock,  when  all  the  shell 
is  broken  off;  and  of  this  sort,  six  of  their  small  beads 
(which  they  make  with  holes  to  string  the  bracelets)  are 
current  with  the  English  for  a  penny.  The  second  is 
black,  inclining  to  blue,  which  is  made  of  the  shell  of  a  fish 
which  the  English  call  hens,  poquauhock,*  and  of  this  sort 
three  make  an  English  penny."     The  white  money  was 

*  This  shell  fish  is  now  called  quahawg.  The  blue  part  of  the 
shell  seems  to  have  been  broken  off,  drilled,  ground  to  a  round, 
smooth  surface,  and  polished.  It  appears  that  the  white  parts  of  the 
quahawg  shell  were  in  like  manner  made  into  wampum.  Morton's 
Memorial,  Appendix,  p.  388. 


83  M  E  M  O  1  R     O  F 

called  wampum,  which  signified  white.  The  other  was 
called  suckauhock,  a  word  signifying  black.  Both  kinds 
seem  to  have  been  called  wampum,  or  wampumpeag.  The 
Narraganset  Indians  were  reputed  the  most  skilful  coiners 
of  wampum,  and  the  most  ingenious  manufacturers  of  pen- 
dants, bracelets,  stone  tobacco  pipes,  and  earthen  vessels 
for  cooking  and  other  domestic  uses.*  They  were,  as  a 
cause,  or  perhaps  as  a  consequence,  more  civilized  and  less 
warlike  than  their  neighbors.!  The  Pequods  insulted  them, 
with  the  contemptuous  title  of  a  nation  of  women.  It  is  a 
coincidence  worthy  of  remark,  that  Rhode-Island,  where 
this  primitive  nation  of  manufacturers  resided,  is  distin- 
guished as  the  place  where  the  manufacture  of  cotton  was 
commenced  in  this  country,  and  where  this,  and  its  kin- 
dred arts,  have  been  cultivated  with  great  success.  The 
history  of  Rhode-Island,  however,  shows  that  her  sons  have 
not  been  deficient  in  martial  qualities.  If  the  sarcasm  of 
the  Pequods  was  deserved  by  the  Narragansets,  it  has  no 
application  to  those  who  now  occupy  the  beautiful  islands, 
the  streams,  the  hills  and  the  plains,  from  which  this  hap- 
less tribe  have  disappeared  forever. 

The  wars  of  the  Indians  were  frequent.  They  were 
conducted  in  a  desultory  manner,  with  all  the  arts  of  savage 
cunning.  Their  weapons  were  bows  and  arrows,  clubs, 
and  rude  spears.  Their  arrows  were  headed  with  sharp, 
triangular  pieces  of  stone,  many  of  which  are  found  at  the 
present  day.  After  the  arrival  of  the  English,  the  arrow 
heads  were  made  of  brass,  and  an  iron  hatchet  being  added 
to  the  club,  formed  the  dreaded  tomahawk.  The  Indians 
soon  learned  the  value  of  fire  arms.  Though  the  sale  of 
muskets  and  of  powder  to  the  Indians  was  forbidden  by  the 
colonists,  yet  the  natives,  obtaining  a  supply  from  the  Dutch, 
and  from  unprincipled  traders,  speedily  rivalled  the  Euro- 
peans in  the  skilful  use  of  these  instruments  of  death. 

The  religion   of  the   Indians  was  vague  and  shadowy. 

*  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  406. 

t  The  remark  of  Lord  Bacon  is  applicable  to  the  native  tribes  of 
our  land.  "  It  is  certain,  that  sedentary  and  within  door  arts,  and 
delicate  manufactures  (that  require  rather  the  finger  than  the  arm) 
have  in  their  nature  a  contrariety  to  a  warlike  disposition  ;  and  gen- 
erally all  warlike  people  are  a  little  idle,  and  love  danger  better  than 
travail."     Essay  29. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  89 

They  had  no  images,  but  they  worshipped  a  number  of 
deities.  Roger  Williams  said,  that  he  had  heard  the  names 
of  thirty-seven  gods,  to  whom  they  rendered  some  religious 
homage.  They  acknowledged,  however,  one  superior  be- 
ing, named  Cautantowit,  as  the  creator  of  men,  and  the 
giver  of  their  corn  and  other  temporal  benefits.  They  be- 
lieved that  Cautantowit  resided  in  the  southwest,*  in  a  de- 
lightful region,  to  which  the  souls  of  good  men  went  after 
death,  and  enjoyed  fruitful  fields,  placid  streams,  abundant 
game,  and  every  thing  else  which  an  Indian's  imagination 
could  conceive  as  necessary  to  happiness.  The  souls  of 
wicked  men,  as  they  believed,  would  wander,  without  rest.t 
The  separate  existence  and  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  an 
endless  state  of  retribution,  according  to  the  deeds  done  in 
the  body,  were  prominent  doctrines  in  the  narrow  creed  of 
these  rude  savages.  These  doctrines  are  found  among 
almost  all  nations ;  and  their  prevalence  can  be  satisfacto- 
rily explained  only  by  supposing  that  they  are  derived  from 
the  original  revelation,  and  preserved,  by  tradition,  as  well  as 
by  their  accordance  with  the  reason  and  instincts  of  man- 
kind. 

The  Indians  had  priests,  who  directed  their  worship. 
This  consisted  in  little  more  than  occasional  prayers,  dances 
and  feasts.  Their  religion  had  little  influence  over  their 
minds,  as  an  incentive  to  virtue,  or  as  a  source  of  consola- 
tion. They  lived  in  gross  darkness,  and  died  without  hope. 
Though  Eliot,  Roger  Williams,  and  others,  labored  for 
their  spiritual  welfare,  with  some  success, |   yet   the  great 

*  They  supposed  that  their  elysium  was  situated  in  the  southwest, 
because  the  wind  from  that  quarter  is  always  the  attendant  or  pre- 
cursor of  fine  weather.  It  was  not  unnatural  for  an  ignorant  savage 
to  imagine,  that  the  balmy  and  delightful  breezes  from  the  south- 
west were  '•'  airs  from  heaven." 

t  Key,  ch.  21. 

t  The  Rev.  John  Eliot,  called  the  Indian  apostle,  was  settled  as 
the  teacher  of  the  church  in  Roxbury,  in  1632.  He  learned  the  In- 
dian language,  and  commenced  preaching  to  the  natives.  In  1651, 
an  Indian  town  was  built,  on  a  pleasant  spot  on  Charles  river,  about 
16  miles  from  Boston,  and  called  Natick.  A  house  of  worship  was 
erected,  and  a  church  of  converted  Indians  was  formed,  in  1660.  In 
1661,  he  pubhshed  the  New  Testament,  in  the  Indian  language,  and 
in  a  few  years  after,  the  whole  Bible,  and  several  other  books.  His 
labors  for  the  welfare  of  the  natives  were  very  great,  and  his  suc- 
cess was  gratifying.     In  1670,  there  were  between  60  and  70  praying 


90  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

mass  of  the  tribes  went  into  eternity  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  Saviour.  It  is  melancholy  to  reflect,  that  multitudes 
of  these  immortal  beings  died,  in  all  their  darkness,  after 
the  glorious  Gospel  had  begun  to  shed  its  radiance  over 
these  hills  and  vallies.  Our  fathers  desired  and  attempted 
their  conversion,  but  their  efforts  were  baffled,  by  many  ad- 
verse causes.  Let  us,  at  this  late  day,  endeavor  to  lead 
the  feeble  remnants  of  these  departed  nations  to  the  great 
Bishop  of  souls. 

The  languages  of  the  Indians  are  among  the  wonders  of 
philology.  They  have  been  studied,  with  ardor  and  suc- 
cess, by  many  scholars  in  our  own  country,  and  by  a  few 
scientific  men  abroad.*  These  languages,  instead  of  being- 
rude  and  scanty,  as  might  be  inferred  from  the  character  of 
the  Indians,  are  found  to  be  astonishingly  regular  and  co- 
pious, rich  in  forms,  and  possessing  a  facility  of  combina- 
tion, and  a  nice  discrimination  in  their  inflections,  which 
are  scarcely  surpassed  even   by  the  ancient  Greek. t     Mr. 


communicants.  The  example  of  Eliot  was  followed  by  others,  es- 
pecially by  the  Mayhews,  who  labored  among  the  Indians  on  Nan- 
tucket and  Martha's  Vineyard.  Many  churches  were  formed  in 
various  places  besides  Natick,  schools  established,  books  printed,  and 
other  efforts  made  for  the  welfare  of  the  natives.  The  aggregate 
number  of  praying  Indians,  in  1674,  has  been  estimated  as  follows : 
In  Massachusetts,  principally  under  Mr.  Eliot's  care,  1100 
In  Plymouth,  under  Mr.  Bourne,  -  -  -      530 

In  Plymouth,  under  Mr.  Cotton,       -  -  -  170 

On  the  island  of  Nantucket,        -  -  -  -      300 

On  Martha's  Vineyard  and  Chappequiddick,  under  the  >  .^^^ 
Mayhews,  5  ^^^^ 

3600 
See  Morton's  Memorial,  note  U,  p.  407,  and  Qu.  Register  of  the 
Am.    Ed.    Soc.  for  Feb.  1832.      Adams'    Bio.    Die.   art.  Eliot  and 
Mayhew. 

*The  illustrious  Professors  Adelung  and  Vater,  and  Baron  Hum- 
boldt, deserve  a  special  mention.  They  are  the  authors  of  that  as- 
tonishing work,  the  Mithridates. 

t  The  Cherokee  language  exceeds  even  the  Greek  in  its  power  to 
express,  by  the  inflection  of  a  single  word,  delicate  modifications  of 
thought.  An  example  is  given  in  the  Appendix  to  the  6th  volume 
of  the  Encyclopaedia  Americana.  It  is  also  a  specimen  of  the  length 
to  which  the  words  in  the  Indian  languages  are  often  extended. 
The  word  is,  Winitaw'tigeginaliskawlungtanawneli'tisesti,  which 
may  be  rendered,  "They  will  by  that  time  have  nearly  done  grant- 
ing [favors]  from  a  distance  to  thee  and  to  me."     This  word  is  uu- 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  91 

Du  Ponceau,  of  Philadelphia,  who  has  studied  the  native 
dialects  with  great  diligence  and  with  philosophical  acumen, 
says,  '*  I  confess  that  I  am  lost  in  astonishment  at  the  co- 
piousness and  admirable  structure  of  their  languages ;  for 
which  I  can  only  account  by  looking  up  to  the  Great  First 
Cause."*  He  says,  of  the  Delaware  language,  "it  would 
rather  appear  to  have  been  formed  by  philosophers  in  their 
closets,  than  by  savages  in  the  wilderness." 

The  languages  and  dialects  spoken  on  the  continent  of 
America,  have  been  estimated  by  the  authors  of  the  Mith- 
ridates,  at  the  astonishing  number  of  twelve  hundred  and 
fourteen.^  A  large  proportion  of  these,  however,  are  only 
variations  of  a  few  parent  languages,  just  as  the  English 
language  is  varied  in  ditferent  counties  in  England  by  pecu- 
liarities, which  are  scarcely  intelligible  in  other  parts  of  the 
island.  The  French  language  is,  in  the  same  way,  cor- 
rupted by  the  patois  of  different  sections  of  the  country. 
Unwritten  languages  are,  of  course,  still  more  liable  to  vari- 
ations, which,  in  time,  would  make  a  distinct  dialect. 

All  the  native  languages  of  North  America  have  been 
reduced  to  four  classes:  1.  The  Karalit,  or  language  of 
Greenland,  and  the  Esquimaux.  2.  The  Delaware.  3. 
The  Iroquois.  4.  The  Floridian,  comprehending  the  body 
of  languages  spoken  on  the  whole  southern  frontier  of  the 
United  States. | 

The  dialects  spoken  in  New-England  are  believed  to  have 
been  varieties  of  the  Delaware  language.§  Roger  Williams 
affirms  of  the  Narraganset  tongue,  that  "  with  this  I  have 
entered  into  the  secrets  of  those  countries  wherever  Eng- 
lish dwell,  about  two  hundred  miles,  between  the  French 
and  Dutch  plantations.  There  is  a  mixture  of  this  lan- 
guage north  and  south  from  the  place  of  my  abode  about  six 
hundred  miles  ;  yet,  within  the  two  hundred  miles  aforesaid, 
their  dialects  do  exceedingly  differ,  yet  not  so  but  (within 

derstood  to  be  regularly  inflected,  according  to  fixed  rules.  If  so, 
the  Cherokee  language  must  have  an  arrangement  of  modes,  tenses 
and  numbers,  which  few  if  any  other  languages  on  earth  can  equal. 

*2His.  Col.  ix.  227. 

t  The  number  assigned,  in  the  same  work,  to  Europe,  is  .587 ;  to 
Africa,  276  :  to  Asia,  987.     Total,  in  the  world,  3064. 

X  2  His.  Col.  ix.  233,  234. 

§Heckewelder  and  Edwards  assert  this  fact. 


92  MEMOIROF 

that  compass)  a  man  may  by  this  help  converse  v/ith  thou- 
sands of  natives  all  over  the  country."*  The  Massachusetts 
language,  into  which  Eliot  translated  the  Bible,  was  radi- 
cally the  same  tongue  as  the  Narraganset. 

Roger  Williams  published  the  first  vocabulary  of  an  In* 
dian  language.  His  book  attracted  attention,  when  first 
published,  in  1643,  and  it  is  still  much  valued.  We  shall  have 
occasion  to  recur  to  it.  Eliot  wrote  a  Grammar  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts language.  The  son  of  President  Edwards  wrote 
a  brief  account  of  the  Mohegan  language.  The  Hon.  Josiah 
Cotton,  a  descendant  of  the  great  John  Cotton,  compiled  a 
vocabulary  of  the  Massachusetts  dialect.  These  and  other 
valuable  papers  on  the  native  languages,  have  been  pub- 
lished in  the  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society.  They  are  worthy  of  the  attention  of  every  man 
who  loves  to  study  the  human  mind,  and  who  feels  an 
interest  in  the  character  of  the  Indians. 

We  will  now  offer  a  few  remarks  on  a  subject  which  has 
already  been  touched,  the  rights  of  the  Indians,  and  the 
treatment  which  they  received  from  the  colonists.  It  is  a 
topic  of  deep  interest,  which  affects  the  character  of  our 
fathers,  and  to  which  recent  events  and  the  present  condi- 
tion of  the  surviving  Indians  have  attracted  earnest  atten- 
tion. 

The  right  of  the  natives  to  hold  the  possession  and  control 
of  all  the  territory  on  this  continent  has  been  a  subject  of 
dispute.  The  general  principles  applicable  to  this  case,  as 
expounded  by  Vattel,  are  these  :f  God  has  given  the  earth 
to  the  human  race,  and  every  man  is  entitled  to  a  portion 
of  its  surface,  sufficient  for  the  comfortable  support  of  him.- 
self  and  family.  The  actual  occupancy  of  such  a  portion 
gives  to  the  occupant  a  title  which  no  man  can  rightfully 
disturb.  But  no  one  has  an  original  right  to  appropriate 
to  himself  more  than  he  needs,  because  he  may  thus  de- 
prive others,  who  possess  equal  rights  with  himself,  of  their 
appropriate  share.  Nor  can  he  justly  adopt  a  mode  of 
subsistence,  which  will  necessarily  require  so  large  an  ex- 
tent of  territory,  as  to  deprive  his  fellow  men  of  their  pro- 
portion, and  either  prevent  the  increase  of  the  human  race, 

*  Key,  introduction. 

t  Vattel's  Law  of  Nations,  book  i.  sections  81  and  209. 


ROGERWILLIAMS.  93 

or  produce  in  other  places  an  accumulation  of  masses  of 
men,  too  great  to  be  comfortably  sustained.  That  the 
cultivation  of  the  earth  was  designed  by  the  Creator  to  be 
the  chief  means  of  subsistence  to  the  human  family,  can- 
not be  doubted ;  because  the  increase  of  the  race  was  cer- 
tainly his  purpose,*  and  agriculture  is  the  only  mode  by 
which  a  dense  population  could  every  where  be  supported. 
It  follows,  that  a  man  has  no  right  to  claim  for  himself  a 
vast  tract  of  forest,  because  he  chooses  to  subsist  by  hunt- 
ing. If  all  other  men  cannot  have  a  similar  tract,  he  must, 
himself,  become  a  cultivator,  and  thus  subsist  on  a  small 
portion  of  land.  If  a  man  had  appropriated  to  himself  a 
large  territory,  which,  by  proper  cultivation,  would  furnish 
subsistence  for  many  others,  those  others,  if  their  necessi- 
ties required,  would  have  a  right  to  claim  their  share,  and 
to  enforce  their  claim. 

These  principles,  in  their  application  to  a  primitive  so- 
ciety, just  taking  possession  of  a  new  territory,  seem  to  be 
indisputable.  They  are  the  principles  on  which  the  land 
of  Canaan  was  divided  among  the  Jews,  by  the  authority 
of  God  himself,  and  on  which  the  colonists  in  this  country 
generally  proceeded,  in  dividing  the  territory  which  they 
acquired  from  the  Indians. 

In  the  progress  of  society,  however,  the  balance  soon 
becomes  disturbed.  Other  modes  of  subsistence  than  agri- 
culture are  adopted,  and  various  causes  produce  an  accu- 
mulation of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  some  men,  while  others 
are  reduced  to  indigence.  The  peace  of  society  requires, 
that  the  rich  should  be  protected  in  their  lawful  posses- 
sions ;  though  every  civilized  nation  still  acts  on  the  prin- 
ciple, that  every  member  of  the  community  is  entitled  to 
a  subsistence.  He  ought  to  earn  it  by  his  labor,  but  if 
sickness;  or  want  of  employment,  or  other  reasonable 
causes,  prevent,  he  is  entitled  to  assistance  from  the  com- 
munity, and  the  rich  are  taxed  for  his  support.  The  most 
strenuous  opposer  of  poor  laws  will  not  deny,  that  a  man, 
who  cannot  maintain  himself,  has  a  right  to  aid  from  his 
fellow  citizens.  Thus  the  original  law  of  nature  comes 
into  operation,   and  the   inequalities  which  arise  are,   in 

*'■  And  God  blessed  them,  and  God  said  unto  them,  Be  fruitful 
and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it."  Genesis,  i.  28. 

9 


94  M  E  M  O  1  R     O  B' 

some  measure,  compensated.  But  a  fundamental  prmci- 
pie  of  civilized  society  is,  that  every  man  is  to  be  protected 
in  the  enjoyment  of  the  property  which  he  lawfully  ac- 
quires. He  may  use  it  as  he  pleases,  if  he  does  not  injure 
others ;  and  he  cannot  be  deprived  of  it,  or  of  any  part  of 
it,  without  his  own  consent. 

It  is  not  easy  to  see,  why  the  same  principle  should  not 
be  applied  to  the  Indians.  They  had  regular,  though  sim- 
ple, governments,  and  the  territories  of  each  tribe  were 
defined  by  boundaries  sufficiently  precise  for  their  pur- 
poses. They  had  the  best  of  all  titles  to  their  lands,  actual 
possession.  Why,  then,  might  not  the  Indian  claim  to  be 
protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  property  ?  Why  might  he 
not  make  use  of  that  property  as  he  pleased,  while  he  did 
not  trespass  on  the  rights  of  others?  If  the  law  of  nations 
did  not  reach  him,  was  he  out  of  the  pale  of  the  great  law 
of  justice  and  reason  ?  If  it  were  said,  that  he  had  no 
right  to  appropriate  to  himself  miles  of  forest,  for  a  hunting 
ground,  he  might  reply,  that  he  had  as  good  a  right  as  an 
English  nobleman  has  to  appropriate  to  himself  a  vast 
space,  for  parks  and  fish  ponds ;  and,  indeed,  a  better 
right,  by  the  law  of  nature^  for  every  other  Indian  could 
enjoy  as  much  land  as  himself,  while  the  nobleman  must 
see  hundreds  around  him  in  abject  poverty. 

But  it  has  been  said,  that  the  Creator  could  not  have 
designed  this  vast  and  beautiful  region  to  be  exclusively 
inhabited  by  a  few  thousands  of  savage  hunters ;  and,  there- 
fore, if  the  old  world  should  become  crowded  with  inhab- 
itants, a  portion  of  them  would  have  a  right  to  remove  to 
America,  and  occupy  a  portion  of  it,  as  a  part  of  the  great 
inheritance  of  the  human  race.  The  Indians  would  con- 
sequently be  bound  to  allow  them  a  sufficient  space ;  and 
if  the  numbers  of  both  parties  should  so  incre'ase  as  to 
make  hunting  impracticable,  the  Indians  ought  to  become 
cultivators. 

If  this  theory  were  admitted  as  sound,  the  practical  ap- 
plication of  it  would  not  be  easy.  The  absolute  necessity 
of  emigration  from  the  old  world  has  not,  perhaps,  occurred, 
and  yet  this  case  must  be  made  out,  to  justify  an  occupancy 
of  a  part  of  the  Indian  territory,  without  the  consent  of  the 
natives.  Immense  tracts  of  uncultivated  land  exist  in 
Europe,  and  even  in  England.     Why  would  it  not  be  as 


ROGER     W5LLIAMS.  95 

ijnst  for  a  company  of  settlers  to  fix  their  dwellings  in  a  no- 
bleman's park,  cut  down  his  trees,  and  plant  their  corn,  as 
to  do  the  same  on  the  lands  of  un  Indian  ?  If  it  were  al- 
leged, that  the  Indian  had  more  land  than  he  needed,  the 
same  might  be  said,  perhaps,  of  the  nobleman.  At  any 
rate,  it  might  be  asked,  who  was  the  proper  judge,  how 
much  land  an  Indian  needed  ? 

But,  looking  at  the  actual  state  of  things,  at  the  settle- 
ment of  this  country,  the  necessities  of  the  Pilgrims  were 
sufficiently  great,  to  make  it  the  duty  of  the  Indians  to  re- 
ceive them  hospitably,  and  allow  them  a  portion  of  their 
lands.  Where  the  country  was  deserted  by  the  natives,  the 
colonists  might,  undoubtedly,  take  possession.  But  wherever 
the  Indians  actually  occupied  the  territory,  even  for  the 
purposes  of  hunting,  they  were,  clearly,  the  proprietors  ; 
and  though  it  was  doubtless  their  duty  to  cede  to  the  Eu- 
ropeans a  sufficient  portion  for  their  maintenance,  yet  they 
could  not  justly  be  forced  to  perform  this  duty.  The  settlers 
were  bound  to  be  satisfied  with  a  sufficient  amount  of  land 
for  their  comfortable  support  by  agriculture  and  by  the 
arts  of  civilized  life.  But  the  Indians  retained  an  inviola- 
ble right  to  so  much  territory  as  they  deemed  necessary  for 
their  own  use.  Their  title  was  beyond  dispute.  No  power 
on  earth  could  lawfully  dispossess  them. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  the  Indians  were  the  law- 
ful  proprietors  of  all  the  lands  which  they  occupied.  They 
were  independent  nations,  and  had  a  right  to  regulate 
their  governments,  and  use  their  territory,  as  they  pleased, 
while  they  respected  the  rights  of  others.  They  conse- 
quently could  not  be  lawfully  subjected  to  the  sway  of 
any  other  nation,  without  their  own  consent.  No  charters 
from  popes  or  kings  could  give  a  right  to  take  possession 
of  the  Indian  territory.  The  Indians  were  nevertheless 
under  an  obligation  to  receive  distressed  Europeans,  who 
sought  their  coasts,  and  to  sell  them  land.  They  were, 
too,  bound  by  the  great  law  of  God,  which  requires  men  to 
aspire  after  moral  and  physical  perfection.  This  law 
obliged  them  to  become  civilized,  and  to  adopt  those  modes 
of  life  which  would  enable  their  territory  to  support  the 
greatest  possible  number  of  inhabitants.  Hence  arose 
another  obligation  to  admit  Europeans  among  them,  who 
were  capable  of  instructing  and  elevating  them  to  the  rank 


96  M  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

of  civilized,  educated,  Christian  nations.  The  duties  of 
the  settlers  were,  to  make  a  reasonable  compensation  for 
the  land  ceded  ;  to  respect  the  rights  of  the  natives  ;  to 
treat  them  with  uniform  kindness ;  to  teach  them  the  arts 
of  civilization  ;  and,  above  all,  to  inculcate  the  principles 
and  the  practice  of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  is  pleasing  to  observe,  in  the  history  of  the  New- 
England  colonists,  that  the  duties  of  both  parties  were,  to 
so  great  an  extent,  fulfilled.  The  Indians,  in  most  cases, 
received  the  white  men  with  generous  hospitality ;  they 
sold  them  land,  on  easy  terms  ;  many  tribes  remained  their 
firm  friends ;  and  some  of  the  natives  became  converts  to 
the  Christian  faith.  The  colonists,  on  the  other  hand, 
purchased  their  lands  from  the  Indians,  for  such  a  com- 
pensation as  satisfied  the  natives,  and  was  a  fair  equivalent 
at  that  time.*     They  treated  the  Indians,  generally,  with 


*The  patents  which  they  brought  with  them  were,  in  tlieory, 
unjust;  for  they  imphed,  in  terms,  the  absolute  control  of  the  Eng- 
lish monarch  over  the  ceded  territory,  and  contained  no  recognition 
of  the  rights  of  the  natives.  But  the  Christian  integrit}^  of  the  Pil- 
grims corrected,  in  practice,  the  erroi  or  defect  of  the  patents.  An 
able  writer  says  :  '•  It  is  beyond  all  question,  that  the  early  settlers 
at  Plymouth,  at  Saybrook,  and,  as  a  general  rule,  all  along  the  At- 
lantic coast,  purchased  the  lands  upon  which  they  settled,  and  pro- 
ceeded in  their  settlements  with  the  consent  of  the  natives.  Nine- 
teen twentieths  of  the  land  in  the  Atlantic  States,  and  nearly  all  the 
land  settled  by  the  whites  in  the  western  States,  came  into  our  pos- 
session as  the  result  of  amicable  treaties."  '-The  settlers  usually 
gave  as  much  for  land  as  it  was  tlien  worth,  according  to  any  fair 
and  judicious  estimate.  An  Indian  would  sell  a  square  mile  of  land 
for  a  blanket  and  a  jack-knife  ;  and  this  would  appear  to  many  to  be 
a  fraudulent  bargain.  It  would,  however,  by  no  means  deserve 
such  an  appellation.  The  knife  alone  would  add  more  to  the  com- 
fort of  an  Indian,  and  more  to  his  v;ealth,  than  forty  square  miles  of 
land,  in  the  actual  circumstances  of  the  case."  See  a  very  judicious 
article  in  the  North  American  Review,  for  October,  1830.  We  may 
add,  that,  at  this  day,  a  square  mile  of  land  might  be  bought  in  some 
parts  of  the  United  States,  for  less  than  the  first  settlers  paid  the 
Indians  for  their  lands.  Indeed,  as  the  writer  just  quoted  says, 
'*  There  are  millions  of  acres  of  land  in  the  Carolinas,  Avhich  would 
not,  at  this  moment,  be  accepted  as  a  gift,  and  3'et  much  of  this  laud 
will  produce,  with  very  little  labor,  one  hundred  and  fift}'^  bushels  of 
sweet  potatoes  to  the  acre."  Vattel  srtys,  (book  i.  §  209)  '•  We  can- 
not help  praising  the  moderation  of  the  English  puritans,  who  first 
settled  in  New-England,  who,  notwithstanding  their  being  furnished 
with  a  charter  from  their  sovereign,  purchased  of  the  Indians  tJxe 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  97 

justice,  and  they  made  many  zealous  efforts  for  their  con- 
version. That  some  of  the  proceedings  of  the  colonists 
towards  the  Indians  were  not  strictly  equitable  nor  kind, 
must  be  admitted.  Our  fathers  were  too  prone  to  view 
them  rather  as  heathens  than  as  men.  They  recurred  too 
often  to  the  Jewish  history,  for  imaginary  analogies  ;  and 
drew  unauthorized  inferences  from  the  conduct  of  the 
Jews  towards  idolatrous  nations,  whom  God,  the  sovereign 
ruler,  commanded  them  to  destroy.  In  their  wars  with 
the  natives,  the  colonists  were  sometimes  unjustifiably 
severe ;  but  it  is  due  to  their  memory  to  say,  that  those 
wars  were  commenced  by  the  savages  themselves,  from 
jealousy  of  the  advancing  power  of  the  whites,  rather  than 
from  the  experience  of  actual  injury.  We  must  consider, 
too,  that  when  the  struggle  came,  it  was,  on  the  part  of 
the  whites,  a  contest  for  life  and  death,  with  an  enemy 
vastly  more  numerous,  and  whose  modes  of  warfare  were 
treacherous,  cruel,  and  terrific  in  the  highest  degree  to  the 
scattered  and  feeble  settlements.* 

A  candid  reader  of  our  early  colonial  history,  while  he 
observes  many  things  which  he  deeply  regrets  and  con- 
demns, must  nevertheless  admit,  that  the  conduct  of  our 
fathers  towards  the  Indians  was,  in  general,  worthy  of 
their  high  character,  as  wise  and  pious,  yet  imperfect  men, 
who  were  placed  in  circumstances  which  severely  tried 
their  principles,  and  amid  difficulties,  which  required  the 
utmost  wisdom  and  courage.  When  we  consider  the  dia- 
bolical cruelty  with  which  the  Spaniards  treated  the  un- 
happy natives  of  South  America,  we  must  turn,  with  emo- 
tions of  grateful  pleasure,  to  the  history  of  our  own  land, 
and  rejoice,  that  our  fathers  were  men,  for  whom  their  de- 
scendants have  little  occasion  to  blush,  or  to  apologize. 

The  kings  of  England,  whatever  language  they  em- 
ployed in  their  patents  and  charters,  treated  the  Indians, 
in  practice,  as  separate  nations,  and  entered  into  treaties 
with    different    trioes.       The    government   of  the   United 


land  they  resolved  to  cultivate.  This  laudable  example  was  follow- 
ed by  Mr.  Willia:n  Penn,  who  planted  the  colony  of  Quakers  in 
Pennsylvania." 

*  The  consternation  which  the  war  with  Black  Hawk  spread  over 
the  western  country  the  last  year,  may  give  some  faint  idea  of  the 
horrors  of  an  Indian  warfare  in  the  early  days  of  the  colonies. 

9* 


98 


MEMOIR     OF 


States  have  done  the  same,  and,  except  m  one  humiliatmg- 
instance,  have  pursued  towards  the  natives  a  just  and 
humane  policy.  The  treaties  so  fonned  have  been  pro- 
nounced, by  the  highest  legal  authority  in  this  country, 
to  be  binding  on  our  government,  and  the  rights  of  the 
Indians,  as  distinct  nations,  though  under  the  protection  of 
the  United  States,  have  thus  been  judicially  recognised.* 

That  the  Indian  tribes  in  New-England  melted  away, 
must  awaken  melancholy  feelings.  But  it  cannot  be  main- 
tained, that  their  disappearance  was  occasioned  mainly  by 
the  treatment  or  the  neglect  which  they  experienced  Irom 
the  colonial  governments.  These  governments  could  not 
wholly  prevent  unprincipled  individuals  from  inflicting 
wrongs  on  the  natives,  which  tended  to  exasperate  them. 
They  could  not  entirely  exclude  the  introduction  of  ardent 
spirits,  the  most  deadly  and  active  agent  in  the  destruction 
of  the  aborigines.  Though  they  sent  missionaries,  and 
printed  Bibles,  and  erected  schools,  for  the  religious  and 
literary  instruction  of  the  natives,  they  could  not  reclaim 
any  considerable  proportion  of  them  from  their  savage 
habits.  As  the  whites  increased,  the  game  disappeared, 
and  as  the  Indians  did  not  alter  their  habits,  they  became 
destitute,  and  their  numbers  diminished.  They  saw,  at 
length,  the  alternative,  of  utter  ruin  or  the  expulsion  of  the 
English,  and  they  determined  to  attempt  the  latter.  But 
it  was  too  late.  They  fought,  with  desperation,  and  filled 
the  land  with  frightful  distress  and  bloodshed.  But  the 
superior  skill  of  the  whites  prevailed,  and  the  death  of  the 
formidable  Philip  terminated  forever  the  power  of  the  In- 
dians in  New-England.  We  may  admit,  that  the  savages 
were  impelled  by  some  motives  of  patriotism  and  love  of 
liberty.  We  may  respect  and  pity  them.  But  surely  we 
cannot  lament  that  they  failed ;  that  their  exterminating 
warfare  did  not  accomplish  its  purpose  ;  that  the  tomahawk 
did  not,  after  butchering  the  last  father  in  the  field,  smite 
the  last  infant  in  the  cradle ;  that  the  flames  did  not  lay  in 
ashes  every  dwelling  of  civilized  man  and  every  temple  of 
God ;  and  that  barbarism  did  not  resume  its  dominion  over 
the  hills  and  vallies  of  New-England.     No  man,  if  he  could 


*See  Opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  at  Jan- 
uary term,  1832,  in  the  Cherokee  case. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  99 

do  it  by  waving  some  potent  wand,  would  bid  all  this 
teeming  population,  this  wide  spread  happiness,  this  won- 
derful triumph  of  civilization,  freedom  and  religion,  disap- 
pear, like  a  gorgeous  vision,  and  restore  this  whole  land  to 
the  condition  in  which  the  Pilgrims  found  it,  or  even  place 
it  in  the  situation  in  which  it  would  have  been,  at  this  mo- 
ment, if  no  civilized  man  had  landed  on  these  shores. 
Human  happiness  has  been  immeasurably  increased  by  the 
settlement  of  this  continent.  Christianity  has  extended 
her  conquests ;  and  no  thoughtful  man  can  doubt,  that  the 
landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  the  subsequent  history  of  this 
country,  have  been  controlled  by  Him,  who  accomplishes 
his  great  designs  of  mercy  to  the  universe,  by  means  which 
often  involve  individual  suffering,  and  sometimes  produce 
national  ruin. 

Let  us  feel  our  obligation  to  treat  the  feeble  remnants  of 
the  tribes  who  yet  remain  with  generous  kindness.  Let  us 
recompense  them  for  whatever  wrongs  their  fathers  may 
have  received.  Let  us,  now  that  they  are  weak,  and  we 
are  strong,  be  scrupulously  attentive  to  their  rights,  and 
seek  to  promote  their  highest  temporal  and  eternal  welfare. 
Without  the  friendship  of  their  fathers,  at  the  beginning, 
ours  must  have  perished.  Let  the  children  of  the  white 
man  prove  their  gratitude,  by  saving  from  ruin  the  helpless 
descendants  of  the  savage. 


1  00  M  E  !VI  O  1  R     O  P 


CHAPTER  VII. 


Mr.  Williams  proceeds  to  Seekonk — crosses  the  river,  and  founds  the 
town  of  Providence. 

About  the  middle  of  January,  1635-6,*  Mr.  Williams 
left  Salem,  in  secrecy  and  haste.  It  is  not  certain,  that 
any  one  accompanied  him,  though  a  number  of  persons 
were  with  him  a  short  time  afterwards.  He  proceeded  to 
the  south,  towards  the  Narraganset  Bay.  The  weather 
was  very  severe,  and  his  suiferings  were  great.  In  a  letter 
written  thirty-five  years  afterwards,  he  said  :  "  I  was  sorely 
tossed  for  one  fourteen  weeks,  in  a  bitter  winter  season,  not 
knowing  what  bread  or  bed  did  mean ;"  and  he  added,  that 
he  still  felt  the  effects  of  his  exposure  to  the  severity  of  the 
weather. t 

He  appears  to  have  visited  Ousamequin,  the  sachem  of 
Pokanoket,  who  resided  at  Mount  Hope,  near  the  present 
town  of  Bristol  (R.  I.)  From  him  he  obtained  a  grant  of 
land  now  included  in  the  town  of  Seekonk,  in  Massachu- 
setts, on  the  east  bank  of  Pawtucket  (now  Seekonk)  river. J 
This  territory  was  within  the  limits  of  the  Plymouth  colony, 
but  Mr.  Williams  recognised  the  Indians  only  as  the  pro- 
prietors, and  bought  a  title  from  the  sachem.  Ousamequin 
doubtless  granted  his  request  with  pleasure,  as  a  return  for 
the  services  and  presents  which  he  had  formerly  received 
from  Mr,  Williams.  If,  as  we  have  supposed,  the  exile 
was  obliged  to  visit  the  sachem,  and  make  these  arrange- 
ments, the  journey,  on  foot,  increased  that  exposure  to  the 
severity  of  the  elements,  of  which  he  complains. 

He  was,  moreover,  unprovided  with  a  dwelling.  Mr. 
Cotton  (in  his  Bloody  Tenet  washed,  p.  8.)  says,  *'  that 
some  of  his  friends  went  to  the  place  appointed  by  himself 
beforehand,  to  make  provision  of  housing,  and  other  neces- 

*  There  is  a  strange  confusion  in  the  statements  of  different  authors 
respecting  the  time  of  Mr.  Williams'  banishment,  and  of  the  settle- 
ment of  Providence.  The  above  date  is  unquestionably  correct, 
for  reasons  which  will  hereafter  be  presented. 

t  Letter  to  Major  Mason.  +  Letter  of  Roger  Williams. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  101 

saries  for  him  against  his  coming.''  This  statemen  t 
however,  must  be  incorrect.  Mr.  Williams'  departure  from 
Salem  was  sudden  and  unexpected ;  and  his  assertion, 
just  quoted,  that  he  did  not  know  "  what  bread  or  bed 
did  mean,"  for  fourteen  weeks,  must  be  understood  as 
excluding  the  idea  of  such  a  preparation  as  Mr.  Cotton 
mentions.  Mr.  Williams,  too,  says,  "  I  first  pitched,  and 
began  to  build  and  plant  at  Seekonk."*  He  had  no  house, 
it  would  seem,  till  he  built  one. 

For  the  means  of  subsistence,  he  must  have  been  depen- 
dent on  the  Indians.  At  that  season,  hunting  and  fishing 
were  impracticable,  if  he  had  possessed  the  proper  instru- 
ments. The  earth  was  covered  with  snow,  and  he  had  not 
even  the  poor  resource  of  roots.  He  may  refer  to  his 
situation  at  this  time,  in  the  following  lines,  alluding  to  the 
Indians  : 

"  God's  Providence  is  rich  to  his, 
Let  none  distrustful  be  ; 

In  wilderness,  in  great  distress. 
These  ravens  have  fed  m.e."t 

The  spot,  in  Seekonk,  where  he  reared  his  habitation, 
is  believed,  on  good  authority,  to  have  been  at  Manton's 
Neck,  near  the  cove,  a  short  distance  above  the  Central 
Bridget 

Here  he  probably  hoped,  that  he  might  live  in  peace. 
He  was  soon  joined  by  several  friends,  if  they  did  not  at 
first  accompany  him.  His  wife  and  children  were  still  at 
Salem. 

But  Seekonk  was  not  to  be  his  home.  In  a  short  time, 
to  use  his  own  language,  "  I  received  a  letter  from  my 
ancient  friend,  Mr.  Winslow,  the  Governor  of  Plymouth, 
professing  his  own  and  others'  love  and  respect  to  me,  yet 
lovingly  advising  me,  since  I  was  fallen  into  the  edge  of 
their  bounds,  and  they  were  loath  to  displease  the  Bay,  to 
remove  to  the  other  side  of  the  water,  and  there,  he  said,  I 
had  the  country  free  before  me,  and  might  be  as  free  as 
themselves,  and  we  should  be  loving  neighbors  together." 
«  This  advice  was  apparently  prudent  and  friendly,  prompted 
by  a  desire  of  peace,  and  by  a  kind  regard  to  Mr.  Williams. 
It  does  not  seem    to  deserve  the    harsh    comments    which 

*  Letter  to  Major  Mason.  t  Key,  chap.  ii. 

t  The  venerable  Moses  Brown  assures  me,  that  he  has  ascertained 
this  fact,  to  his  own  satisfaction. 


102  MEMOIR    OF 

have  sometimes  been  made  on  it.  Mr.  Williams  himself 
does  not  speak  of  it  in  a  tone  of  reproach.  He  immedi- 
ately resolved  to  comply  with  the  ?dvice.  He  accordingly 
embarked  in  a  canoe,  with  five  others,*  and  proceeded 
down  the  stream.  As  they  approached  the  little  cove,  near 
Tockwotten,  now  India  Point,  they  were  saluted,  by  a 
company  of  Indians,  with  the  friendly  interrogation,  "  What 
cheer?"  a  common  English  phrase,  which  they  had  learned 
from  the  colonists.f  At  this  spot,  they  probably  went  on 
shore,  but  they  did  not  long  remain  there. j:  They  passed 
round  India  Point  and  Fox  Point,  and  proceeded  up  the 
river  on  the  west  side  of  the  peninsula,  to  a  spot  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Moshassuck  river.  Tradition  reports,  that 
Mr.  Williams  landed  near  a  spring,  which  remains  till  this 
day.§  At  this  spot,  the  settlement  of  Rhode-Island  com- 
menced : 

"  O  call  it  holy  ground, 

The  soil  where  first  they  trod, 

They  have  left  unstained,  what  there  they  found. 
Freedom  to  worship  God."|| 

To  the  town  here  founded,  Mr.  Williams,  with  his  habit- 
ual piety,  and  in  grateful  remembrance  of  "  God's  merciful 
Providence  to  him  in  his  distress,"  gave  the  name  of 
Providence. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  respecting  the  precise 
period  at  which  this  memorable  event  occurred.  There  is 
a  perplexing  confusion  in  the  statements  of  different  writers. 
We  shall  be  excused,  if  we  examine  the  subject  with  some 
minuteness.  Callender,  in  his  Century  Sermon,  (p.  18) 
says,  that  it  was  "  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1634-5." 
Governor  Hopkins,  in  his  History  of  Providence,^  places  it 

*  William  Harris,  John  Smith,  (miller.)  Joshua  Verin,  Thomas 
Angell  and  Francis  Wickes.  R.  I.  Register,  1828,  article  written  by 
Moses  Brown. 

t  Equivalent  to  the  modern  How  do  you  do  ? 

\  The  lands  adjacent  to  this  spot  were  called  Jlliatcheer,  in  mem- 
ory of  the  occurrence. 

§  ^'  Tradition  has  uniformly  stated  the  place  where  they  landed,  to 
be  at  the  spring  southwest  of  the  Episcopal  church,  at  which  a  house 
has  recently  been  built  by  Mr.  Nehemiah  Dodge."     Moses  Brown. 

II  Mrs.  Hemans'  noble  ode,  '•  The  Landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers." 
This  beautiful  stanza  applies  with  more  literal  truth  to  Roger  Wil- 
liams and  his  companions,  than  to  all  the  Pilgrim  fathers. 

H  Published  in  the  Providence  Gazette,  from  January  to  March, 
1765,  and  republished  in  the  2  Mass.  His.  Col.  ix- 


11  o  (i  E  R   Williams.  .103 

'*  some  time  in  the  year  1634."  Hutchinson  (vol.  i.  p.  41) 
assigns  the  same  year.  Later  writers  have  naturally  been 
led  into  the  same  mistake.  Backus  (vol.  i.  p.  70)  states, 
that  in  January,  1636,  Mr.  Y/illiams  left  Massachusetts, 
which  is  the  right  date,  according  to  the  modern  mode  of 
computing  time,  though,  by  the  style,  which  then  prevailed, 
it  was  1635. 

But  the  period  of  his  banishment  is  fixed  decisively  by  the 
records  of  Massachusetts,  and  by  Winthrop's  Journal, 
His  sentence  of  banishment  was  passed,  November  3, 
1635.*  In  January  following,  according  to  Winthrop  (vol. 
i.  p.  175)  the  Court  resolved  to  send  him  to  England,  and 
the  messengers  found,  tliat  he  had  departed  from  Salem 
three  days  before  their  arrival. 

In  his  letter  to  Major  Mason,  Mr.  Williams  says,  "  The 
next  year  after  my  banishment,  the  Lord  drew  the  bow  of 
the  Pequod  war  against  the  country."  This  war  commen- 
ced in  Julyj  1636,  with  the  murder  of  Oldham.  This  fact 
corroborates  the  preceding  statement. 

The  time  of  his  leaving  Seekonk  for  Providence  cannot 
be  accurately  determined,  but  we  may  approach  very  near 
to  the  true  date. 

Governor  Winslow,  of  Plymouth,  who  advised  him  to  leave 
Seekonk,  entered  on  his  ojfficial  duties  in  March,  1635-6. 
This  was  the  only  year  that  he  held  the  office  of  Governor, 
between  1633  and  1644.t  Mr.  Williams  must,  therefore, 
have  been  at  Seekonk,  subsequently  to  the  date  of  Governor 
Winslow's  accession  to  office. 

In  Mr.  Williams'  letter  to  Major  Mason,  he  says,  that 
he  "  began  to  build  and  plant  at  Seekonk."  He  did  not 
begin  to  plant,  we  may  presume,  till  the  middle  of  April,  if 
so  early. I  In  the  same  letter,  he  speaks  of  his  removal  as 
occasioning  his  "  loss  of  a  harvest  that  year,"  from  which 
remark  we  may  reasonably  infer,  that  the  corn  had  attained 
a  considerable  growth  before  he  left  Seekonk,  and  conse- 
quently that  he  did  not  cross  the  river  till  the  middle,  per- 
haps, of  June. 

On  the  26th  of  July,  a  letter  was  received  from  Mr. 
Williams,  by  Governor  Vane,  informing  him  of  the  murder 

*  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  i.  p.  163.  t  Backus,  vol.  i.  74. 

t  The  Plymouth  settlers,  in  1623,  began  to  plant  their  corn  the 
middle  of  April.     Prince,  p.  216. 


104  MEMOIR     OP 

of  Mr.  Oldham,  by  the  Indians  of  Block-Island.*  This 
letter  was  written  at  Providence,  and  it  proves,  that  Mr. 
Williams  had  removed  thither  previously  to  the  26th  of 
July. 

We  may  safely  conclude,  that  he  left  Seekonk,  not  far 
from  the  middle  of  June,  1636.  The  exact  day  will  never, 
it  is  probable,  be  ascertained.! 

There  is  one  circumstance,  which,  perhaps,  misled  Mr. 
Callender  and  Governor  Hopkins  respecting  the  year  of 
Mr.  Williams'  arrival.  In  a  deed,  signed  by  himself  and 
wife,  and  dated  December  20,  1661,  he  used  these  words: 
''  Having,  in  the  year  one  thousand  six  hundred  thirty-four, 
and  in  the  year  one  thousand  six  hundred  thirty-five,  had 
several  treaties  with  Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  the  two 
chief  sachems  of  the  Narragansets,  and  in  the  end  purchased 
of  them  the  lands  and  meadows  upon  the  two  fresh  rivers, 
called  Moshassuck  and  Wanasquatucket,  the  two  sachems 
having,  by  a  deed  under  their  hands,  two  years  after  the 
sale  thereof,  established  and  confirmed  the  bounds  of  these 
lands." 

The  statement,  that  he  had  held  several  treaties  with  the 
Narraganset  sachems,  in  1634  and  1635,  presents  some 
difficulty.  But  we  have  already  seen,  that  while  at 
Plymouth  and  at  Salem,  he  held  some  intercourse  with 
these  chiefs.  In  a  manuscript  letter,  already  quoted,  he 
says  : 

"  I  spared  no  cost  towards  them,  and  in  gifts  to 
Ousamequin  and  all  his,  and  to  Canonicus  and  all  his, 
tokens  and  presents,  many  years  before  I  came  in  person 
to  the  Narraganset;  and  therefore  when  I  came,  I  was 
welcome  to  Ousamequin  and  to  the  old  prince  Canonicus, 
who  was  most  shy  of  all  English  to  his  last  breath." 

It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  "  treaties"  which  he 
mentions,  as  having  been  held  in  1634  and  1635,  were 
propositions  concerning  lands,  made  by  him,  perhaps,  to  the 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  190. 

t  In  a  letter  to  the  author,  from  John  Howland,Esq.  of  Providence, 
one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  active  members  of  the  Rhode-Island 
Historical  Society,  he  says,  "  When  our  Society  was  first  formed, 
it  was  proposed  to  fix  on  the  day  of  his  arrival  here,  as  the  day  of 
the  annual  meetings  of  the  Society;  and  till  that  day  could  be 
ascertained,  we  decided  on  the  day  of  the  date  of  the  charter  of 
Charles  II." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  105 

chiefs,  through  Indians,  whom  he  saw  at  Boston  or  Salem, 
and  by  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  to  them 
presents.  We  have  already  intimated  a  conjecture,  that 
for  some  time  before  his  banishment,  he  had  entertained 
the  thought  of  a  settlement  in  the  Indian  country.  If  so, 
it  was  natural  for  him  to  enter  into  negotiations  for  lands. 
But  these  propositions,  whatever  they  were,  were  not 
concluded  in  the  years  which  he  mentions.  He  says,  that 
"  in  the  end^'  he  purchased  the  lands  at  Providence,  and 
that  the  deed  was  dated  two  years  after  the  purchase. 
We  accordingly  find,  that  the  deed  was  dated  "  at 
Narraganset,  the  24th  of  the  first  month,  commonly 
called  March,  in  the  second  year  of  the  plantation,  or 
planting  at  Moshassuck,  or  Providence."  The  year  is  not 
mentioned  in  the  instrument,  but  it  is  known  to  have  been 
1637-8.*  This  deed  corresponds  with  Mr.  Williams' 
statement,  and  refers  to  the  year  1636  as  the  time  of  his 
actual  purchase,  and  also  as  that  of  his  arrival. 

We  will  add  another  fact,  to  strengthen  a  position,  which 
has,  perhaps,  been  sufficiently  established.  A  parchment 
deed,  now  in  the  possession  of  Moses  Brown,  is  dated  the 
"-  14th  day  of  the  second  month,  in  the  5th  year  of  our 
situation,  or  plantation,  at  Moshassuck,  or  Providence,  and 
in  the  17th  year  of  King  Charles,  &c.  1641. "f  This  deed 
also  points  to  the  year  1636,  as  the  date  of  the  first  settle- 
ment of  Providence. 

In  June,  of  this  year,  the  settlement  of  Hartford  (Con.) 
was  begun.  Rev.  Messrs.  Hooker  and  Stone,  who  had 
been  settled  at  Newtown,  (now  Cambridge)  removed,  with 
their  whole  church,  and  founded  the  city  of  Hartford.  A 
fort  had  been  built,  the  preceding  year,  at  Say  brook,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river  Connecticut,  and  small  settlements 
had  been  commenced  at  Weathersfield  and  Windsor. 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  89.  t  Rhode-Island  Register,  1828. 


10 


100  MEMOIR    OF 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Purchase  of  lands  from  the  Indians — division  of  the  lands  among 
the  settlers. 

The  spot  where  Mr.  Williams  and  his  companions 
landed  was  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Narraganset 
Indians.*  The  sachems  of  this  tribe  were  Canonicus, 
and  his  nephew  Miantinomo.  The  former  was  an  old 
man,  and  he  probably  associated  with  him  his  young 
nephew,  as  better  fitted  to  sustain  the  toils  and  cares  of 
royalty.  Their  residence  is  said  by  Gookin  to  have  been 
about  Narraganset  Bay,  and  on  the  island  of  Canonicut. 

The  first  object  of  Mr,  Williams  would  naturally  be,  to 
obtain  from  the  sachems  a  grant  of  land  for  his  new 
colony.  He  probably  visited  them,  and  received  a  verbal 
cession  of  the  territory,  which,  two  years  afterwards,  was 
formally  conveyed  to  him  by  a  deed.  This  instrument 
may  properly  be  quoted  here  :f 

"At  Narraganset,  the  24th  of  the  first  month,  com- 
monly called  March,  the  second  year  of  the  plantation  or 
planting  at  Moshassuck,  or  Providence  ,  Memorandum, 
that  we,  Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  the  two  chief  sachems 

*  '•  Under  the  general  name  of  Narraganset,  were  included  Nar- 
raganset proper,  and  Coweset.  Narraganset  proper  extended  south 
from  what  is  now  called  Warwick  to  the  ocean;  Coweset,  from 
Narraganset  northerly  to  the  Nipmlick  country,  which  now  forms 
Oxford,  (Mass.)  and  some  other  adjoining  towns.  The  western 
boundaries  of  Narraganset  and  Coweset  cannot  be  definitely  ascer- 
tained. Gookin  says,  the  Narraganset  jurisdiction  extended  thirty 
or  forty  miles  from  Seekonk  river  and  Narraganset  Bay,  including 
the  islands,  southwesterly  to  a  place  called  Wekapage,  four  or  five 
miles  to  the  eastward  of  Fawcatuck  river ;  that  it  included  a  part  of 
Long-Island,  Block-Island,  Coweset  and  Niantick,  and  received 
tribute  from  some  of  the  Nipmucks.  After  some  research,  I  am  in- 
duced to  believe,  that  the  Nianticks  occupied  the  territory  now 
called  Westerly.  If  so,  then  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Narragansets 
extended  to  the  Pawcatuck,  and  perhaps  beyond  it." — Whatcheer, 
Notes,  p.  176. 

t  This  is  transcribed  from  a  copy  furnished  by  John  Howland, 
Esq.  It  differs  a  little  from  that  contained  in  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  89. 
The  orthography  is  conformed  to  modern  usage. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  107 

of  Narraganset,  having  two  years  since  sold  unto  Roger 
Williams  the  lands  and  meadows  upon  the  two  fresh  rivers, 
called  Moshassuck  and  Wanasquatucket,  do  now,  by  these 
presents,  establish  and  confirm  the  bounds  of  these  lands, 
from  the  river  and  fields  of  Pawtucket,  the  great  hill  of 
Notaquoncanot,  on  the  northwest,  and  the  town  of  Masha- 
paug,  on  the  west.*  We  also,  in  consideration  of  the 
many  kindnesses  and  services  he  hath  continually  done 
for  us,  both  with  our  friends  of  Massachusetts,  as  also  at 
Connecticut,  and  Apaum,  or  Plymouth,  we  do  freely  give 
unto  him  all  that  land  from  those  rivers  reaching  to  Paw- 
tuxet  river ;  as  also  the  grass  and  meadows  upon  the 
said  Pawtuxet  river.  In  witness  whereof,  we  have  here- 
unto set  our  hands. 

The  mark  (a  bow)  of      CANONICUS. 
The  mark  (an  arrow)  of  MIANTINOMO. 
In  the  presence  of 
The  mark  of  Sohash, 
The  mark  of  x4lsomunsit, 

"]639.  Memorandum.  3d  month,  9th  day,  this  was  all 
again  confirmed  by  Miantinomo.  He  acknowledged,  that 
he  also  [illegible]!  and  gave  up  the  streams  of  Pawtucket 
and  Pawtuxet,  without  limits,  we  might  have  for  our  use 
of  cattle. 

Witness  hereof, 

Roger  Williams, 

Benedict  Arnold." 

The  lands  thus  ceded  to  Mr.  Williams  he  conveyed  to 
twelve  men,  who  accompanied,  or  soon  joined,  him,  re- 
serving for  himself  an  equal  part  only.  Before  we  narrate 
the  particulars  of  this  transaction^  a  few  remarks  are 
necessary. 

It  appears  from  the   tenor  of  the   deed,  and  from  other 

*  "  The  great  hill,  Notaquoncanot,  mentioned  as  a  bound,  is  three 
miles  west  from  Weybosset  bridge.  Mashapaug  is  about  two  miles 
south  of  the  hill. — J.  H." 

t  Mr.  Backus  (vol.  i.  p.  90)  has  this  reading:  "  He  acknowledged 
this  his  act  and  hand ;  up  the  streams,"  &c.  But  the  reading  in 
the  text  is  retained,  according  to  Mr.  Rowland's  copy.  The  deed 
was  written  by  Roger  Williams,  but  the  memorandum  by  some 
other  person, 


108  MEMOIR    OF 

evidence,  that  the  original  sale  included  only  the  lands 
mentioned  in  the  first  part  of  the  deed.  These  are  said 
by  the  sachems  to  have  been  *'  sold"  to  Mr.  Williams. 
The  grass  and  meadows  on  Pawtuxet  river  are  said  to  be 
given  to  him,  in  consideration  of  his  services. 

An  interesting  question,  which  occasioned  much  de- 
bate in  the  early  times  of  the  colony,  claims  consideration 
here.  \Wre  the  lands,  ceded  by  the  sachems,  so  con- 
veyed, that  they  became  the  property  of  Roger  Williams 
himself,  and  might  he,  with  justice  and  honor,  have  sold 
or  retained  them,  as  he  pleased?  An  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion will  throw  light  on  his  subsequent  conduct. 

The  conveyance  in  the  deed  is  made  to  him  alone. 
The  title,  consequently,  was  vested  in  him,  so  far  as  the 
instrument  went.  But  this  fact  does  not  decide  the  point. 
It  was  a  subject  of  accusation  against  him,  that  the  con- 
veyance was  not  made  to  him  and  his  associates.  Did  he, 
then,  act  on  behalf  of  others,  as  well  as  for  himself? 

If  his  ow^n  solemn  and  often  repeated  assertions  are 
worthy  of  credit,  he  obtained  the  lands  by  his  own  money 
and  influence,  and  might  have  held  them  as  his  property. 

He  argues  the  case  at  large,  in  his  letter  to  the  Com- 
missioners, in  1677,  to  whom  he  was  accused  of  unfair 
conduct  respecting  the  lands. 

He  asserts,  in  the  first  place,  "  It  is  not  true,  that  I 
was  employed  by  any,  was  supplied  by  any,  or  desired  any 
to  come  with  me  into  these  parts.  My  soul's  desire  was, 
to  do  the  natives  good,  and  to  that  end  to  learn  their  lan- 
guage, (which  I  afterwards  printed)  and  therefore  desired 
not  to  be  troubled  with  English  company."  He  adds, 
that  "  out  of  pity,  he  gave  leave  to  several  persons  to 
come  along  in  his  company."  He  makes  the  same  state- 
ment in  his  deed  of  1661  : — "  I  desired  it  might  be  for  a 
shelter  for  persons  distressed  for  conscience.  I  then  con- 
sidering the  condition  of  divers  of  my  distressed  country- 
men, I  communicated  my  said  purchase  unto  my  loving 
friends,  [whom  he  names]  who  then  desired  to  take  shel- 
ter here  with  me." 

It  seems,  then,  that  his  original  design  was  to  come 
alone,  probably  to  dwell  among  the  Indians,  and  do  them 
good  ;  but  he  altered  his  plan,  and  resolved  to  establish  a 
refuge  for  those  who  might  flee   from  persecution.     The 


ROCxER     WILLIAMS.  109 

project  was  his  own,  and  worthy  of  his  generous  and  lib- 
eral mind.  He  certainly  was  not  employed,  as  an  agent, 
to  purchase  lands  for  others.  He  uses  another  argument : 
"  I  mortgaged  my  house  in  Salem  (worth  some  hundreds) 
for  supplies  to  go  through,  and,  therefore,  was  it  a  single 
business." 

Having  thus  shown  that  he  acted  for  himself,  and  on 
his  own  responsibility,  he  states,  that  the  lands  were  pro- 
cured from  the  sachems  by  his  influence  alone.  He  enu- 
merates several  advantages  which  he  enjoyed  in  this 
negotiation  :  ''  1.  A  constant,  zealous  desire  to  dive  into 
the  natives'  language.  2.  God  was  pleased  to  give  me  a 
painful,  patient  spirit  to  lodge  with  them  in  their  filthy, 
smoky  holes,  (even  while  I  lived  at  Plymouth  and  Salem) 
to  gain  their  tongue.  3.  I  spared  no  cost  towards  them, 
and  in  gifts  to  Ousamequin,  yea,  and  all  his,  and  to  Ca- 
nonicus,  and  all  his,  tokens  and  presents,  many  years 
before  I  came  in  person  to  the  Narraganset,  and  when  I 
came,  I  was  welcome  to  Ousamequin,  and  to  the  old 
prince  Canonicus,  who  was  most  shy  of  all  English,  to  his 
last  breath.  4.  I  was  known  by  all  the  Wampanoags 
and  the  Narragansets  to  be  a  public  speaker  at  Plymouth 
and  Salem,  and,  therefore,  with  them,  held  as  a  sachem. 
5.  I  could  debate  with  them  (in  a  great  measure)  in  their 
own  language.  6.  I  had  the  favor  and  countenance  of 
that  noble  soul,  Mr.  Winthrop,  whom  all  Indians  re- 
spected." 

He  proceeds  to  state,  respecting  Canonicus,  that  "  it 
was  not  thousands  nor  tens  of  thousands  of  money  could 
have  bought  of  him  an  English  entrance  into  this  Bay." 

In  the  deed,  already  quoted,  he  says,  "  By  God's  mer- 
ciful assistance,  I  was  the  procurer  of  the  purchase,  not  by 
monies  nor  payment,  the  natives  being  so  shy  and  jealous, 
that  monies  could  not  do  it,  but  by  that  language,  acquain- 
tance and  favor  with  the  natives,  and  other  advantages, 
which  it  pleased  God  to  give  me ;  and  also  bore  the 
charges  and  venture  of  all  the  gratuities,  which  I  gave  to 
the  great  sachems,  and  other  sachems  round  about  us,  and 
lay  engaged  for  a  loving  and  peaceable  neighborhood  with 
them,  to  my  great  charge  and  travel."* 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  94. 

10* 


110  MtlMOinOF 

These  facts  prove,  that  the  lands  were  granted  to  Ml*. 
Williams,  as  a  personal  favor,  as  an  expression  of  grati- 
tude on  the  part  of  the  sachems,  and  as  a  remuneration 
for  presents,  which  they  had  been  receiving  from  him  for 
several  years.  Mr.  Williams,  then,  was  entitled  to  make 
the  assertion,  which  is  contained  in  his  touching  letter  to 
the  town  of  Providence,  in  1654 :  "  I  have  been  blamed 
for  parting  with  Moshassuck,  and  afterwards  Pawtuxet, 
(which  were  mine  own,  as  truly  as  any  man's  coat  upon 
his  back)  without  reserving  to  myself  a  foot  of  land,  or  an 
inch  of  voice,  more  than  to  my  servants  and  strangers."* 

Mr.  Williams  was  thus  the  legal  proprietor  of  the  lands 
which  were  ceded  to  him,  and  he  might  have  remained 
so,  if  he  had  pleased.  He  had  a  clear  title  from  the  In- 
dians, and  he  had,  a  few  years  later  certainly,  sufficient 
influence  with  the  rulers  in  England,  to  obtain  a  recog- 
nition of  his  rights,  and  a  confirmation  of  his  authority. 
He  might,  doubtless,  have  been,  like  William  Penn,  the 
proprietary  of  his  colony,  and  might  have  exercised  a  con- 
trol over  its  government.  He  would,  we  may  easily  be- 
lieve, have  exercised  his  authority  as  wisely  and  beneficially 
as  the  great  legislator  of  Pennsylvania.  The  peace  of  his 
settlement  and  his  own  comfort  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
promoted,  if  he  had  retained  this  power  awhile,  instead  of 
committing  it  to  the  whole  company  of  settlers,  among  whom, 
from  the  nature  of  the  colony,  as  a  refuge  for  "  all  sorts  of 
consciences,"  some  heterogeneous  and  discordant  tempers 
might  be  expected  to  find  admission.  That  he  was  bldiiicd 
for  this  conduct,  we  know  from  his  letter  to  the  town  of 
Providence,  already  quoted  ;f    and  as  that  letter  was  writ- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  290. 

t  See  above.  He  adds,  '•  It  hath  been  told  me,  that  I  labored 
for  a  licentious  and  contentious  people  ;  that  I  have  foolishly  parted 
with  town  and  colony  advantages,  by  which  I  might  have  preserved 
both  town  and  colony  in  as  good  order  as  any  in  the  country  about 
us.'  The  following  letter  from  his  son  may  be  properly  quoted 
here,  as  confirming  the  preceding  statements  : 

'•  To  all  them  that  deem  themselves  purchasers  in  the  town  of 
Providence,  if  they  be  real  purchasers,  I  would  have  them  make  it 
appear, 

"  Gentlemen, 
"  I  thought  good   in  short  to  present  you  with  these  few  lines, 
concerning  the  bounds  of  Providence,  &c.     I  have  put  forth  several 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  Ill 

ten  soon  after  his  return  from  England,  we  may  infer,  that 
the  censure  came  from  leading  men  there. 

But  he  chose  to  found  his  colony  on  pure  democratic  prin- 
ciples ;  as  a  commonwealth,  where  all  civil  power  should 
be  exercised  by  the  people  alone,  and  where  God  should 
be  the  only  ruler  over  the  conscience. 

We  will  now  relate  the  facts  respecting  his  division  of 
the  lands  among  his  associates. 

The  persons  who  accompanied  him,  at  his  first  landing, 
were  William  Harris,  John  Smith,  Joshua  Verin,  Thomas 
Angell  and  Francis  Wickes.  Several  others  joined  him 
at    various    times,   previously   to    October   8,     1638,   on 


queries  to  several  men  in  the  township,  to  be  answered  ;  but  have 
not  any  answer  from  any  of  them  ;  and,  as  I  judge,  doth  not  care  to 
have  any  discourse  about  it.  Therefore,  now  I  speak  to  you  all,  de- 
siring your  honors  will  be  pleased  to  consider  of  the  matter,  and  to 
answer  me  to  one  or  two  queries  ;  that  is,  whether  you  have  any 
thing  under  my  father's  hand  to  prove  the  bounds  of  this  town  afore 
those  twelve  men  were  concerned ;  or  whether  my  father  disposed 
of  any  of  the  township  to  any  other  persons  since  the  twelve  men 
were  first  in  power,  &c.  If  my  father  had  disposed  or  sold  his 
whole  township,  and  they  he  sold  it  to,  or  have  it  under  his  hand, 
prove  the  sale,  although  it  was  but  for  one  penny,  God  forbid  that 
ever  I  should  open  my  mouth  about  it,  &c.  It  is  evident,  that  this 
township  was  my  father's,  and  it  is  held  in  his  name  against  all 
unjust  clamors,  &c.  Can  you  find  such  another  now  alive,  or  in 
this  age  .'  He  gave  away  his  lands  and  other  estate,  to  them  that 
he  thought  were  most  in  v\^ant,  until  he  gave  av/ay  all,  so  that  he 
had  nothing  to  help  himself,  so  that  he  being  not  in  a  way  to  get 
for  his  supply,  and  being  ancient,  it  must  needs  pinch  somewhere. 
I  do  not  desire  to  say  what  I  have  done  for  both  lather  and  mother. 
I  judge  they  wanted  nothing  that  was  convenient  for  ancient 
people,  &c.  What  my  father  gave,  I  believe  he  had  a  good  intent 
in  it,  and  thought  God  would  provide  for  his  family.  He  never 
gave  me  but  about  three  acres  of  land,  and  but  a  little  afore  he  de- 
ceased. It  looked  hard,  that  out  of  so  much  at  his  disposing,  that  I 
should  have  so  little,  and  he  so  little.  For  the  rest,  &c.  I  did  not 
think  to  be  so  large ;  so  referring  your  honors  to  those  queries  you 
have  among  you, 

*'  Your  friend  and  neighbor, 

''■  DANIEL  WILLIAMS. 
•'  Providence,  Aug.  24,  1710. 

"  If  a  covetous  man  had  that  opportunity  as  he  had,  most  of  this 
town  would  have  been  his  tenants,  I  believe. 

D.  W." 


112  MEMOIR     OP 

which   day,  Mr.  Williams  executed  an  instrument,  of  the 
following  tenor.* 

*'  Providence,  Sth  of  the  8th  month,  1638,  {so  called.) 
"  Memorandum,  that  I,  Roger  Williams,  having  formerly 
purchased  of  Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  this  our  situation, 
or  plantation,  of  New  Providence, t  viz.  the  two  fresh  rivers, 
Wanasquatucket  and  Moshassuck,  and  the  ground  and 
meadows  thereupon  ;  in  consideration  of  thirty  pounds  re- 
ceived from  the  inhabitants  of  said  place,  do  freely  and 
fully  pass,  grant  and  make  over  equal  right  and  power  of 
enjoying  and  disposing  of  the  same  grounds  and  lands 
unto  my  loving  friends  and  neighbors,  Stukely  Westcott, 
William  Arnold,  Thomas  James,  Robert  Cole,  John  Greene, 
John  Throckmorton,  William  Harris,  William  Carpenter, 
Thomas  Olney,  Francis  Weston,  Richard  Waterman, 
Ezekiel  Holliman,  and  such  others  as  the  major  part  of  us 
shall  admit  into  the  same  fellowship  of  vote  with  us  : — As 
also  I  do  freely  make  and  pass  over  equal  right  and  power 
of  enjoying  and  disposing  of  the  lands  and  grounds  reach- 
ing from  the  aforesaid  rivers  unto  the  great  river  Paw- 
tuxet,  with  the  grass  and  meadows  thereupon,  which  was 
so  lately  given  and  granted  by  the  aforesaid  sachems  to  me. 
Witness  my  hand, 

ROGER  WILLIAMS."t 

On  the  20th  of  December,  1661,  the  following  deed  was 
executed.  It  is  inserted  here,  because  it  is  an  interesting 
document,  and  it  throws  much  light  on  the  transactions 
which  we  are  considering. 

*  The  first  deed  was  ^'  written  in  a  strait  of  time  and  haste,"  as 
he  alleged,  and  contained  only  the  initials  of  the  names  of  the 
grantees.  He  was  censured  for  this  by  some  of  them,  as  if  he  had 
done  it  for  some  sinister  design  I  They  urged  him  to  give  them 
another  deed,  which  he  finally  did,  on  the  22d  of  December,  1666, 
when  the  document  in  the  text  was  written,  retaining  the  original 
date. 

t  The  name,  JVeiv  Providence,  appears  in  a  few  documents  written 
by  Mr.  Williams  himself,  and  by  others,  but  it  was  soon  discon- 
tinued. The  origin  of  the  epithet  JYezc  may  have  been,  a  desire  to 
distinguish  the  town  from  the  island  of  Providence,  one  of  the  Ba- 
hama islands,  on  which  a  plantation  was  begun  in  1629.  Holmes' 
Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  201.  This  island  has  since  received  the  name  of 
New  Providence.  The  town  of  Roger  Williams  was  entitled  to  the 
precedence. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  92. 


ROG  E  R     W  I  LLI  AMS.  113 

"  Be  it  known  unto  all  men  by  these  presents,  that  I, 
Roger  Williams,  of  the  town  of  Providence,  in  the  Narra- 
ganset  Bay,  in  New-England,  having,  in  the  year  one 
thousand  six  hundred  thirty-four,  and  in  the  year  one  thou- 
sand six  hundred  thirty-five,  had  several  treaties  with  Ca- 
nonicus  and  Miantinomo,  the  two  chief  sachems  of  the 
Narraganset,  and  in  the  end  purchased  of  them  the  lands 
and  meadows  upon  the  two  fresh  rivers  called  Moshassuck 
and  Wanasquatucket,  the  two  sachems  having,  by  a  deed, 
under  their  hands,  two  years  after  the  sale  thereof,  estab- 
lished and  confirmed  the  bounds  of  these  lands  from  the 
rivers  and  fields  of  Pawtucket,  the  great  hill  of  Notaquon- 
canot  on  the  northwest,  and  the  town  of  Mashapaug  on 
the  west,  notwithstanding  I  had  the  frequent  promise  of 
Miantinomo,  my  kind  friend,  that  it  should  not  be  land 
that  I  should  want  about  these  bounds  mentioned,  pro- 
vided that  I  satisfied  the  Indians  there  inhabiting.  I  hav- 
ing made  covenant  of  peaceable  neighborhood  with  all 
the  sachems  and  natives  round  about  us,  and  having,  of  a 
sense  of  God's  merciful  Providence  unto  me  in  my  distress, 
called  the  place  Providence,  I  desired  it  might  be  for  a 
shelter  for  persons  distressed  for  conscience.  I  then  con- 
sidering the  condition  of  divers  of  my  distressed  country- 
men, I  communicated  my  said  purchase  unto  my  loving 
friends,  John  Throckmorton,  William  Arnold,  William 
Harris,  Stukely  Westcott,  John  Greene,  Senior,  Thomas 
Olney,  Senior,  Richard  Waterman,  and  others,  who  then 
desired  to  take  shelter  here  with  me,  and  in  succession 
unto  so  many  others  as  we  should  receive  into  the  fellow- 
ship and  society  of  enjoying  and  disposing  of  the  said  pur- 
chase ;  and  besides  the  first  that  were  admitted,  our  town 
records  declare,  that  afterwards  we  received  Chad 
Brown,  William  Field,  Thomas  Harris,  Senior,  William 
Wickenden,  Robert  Williams,  Gregory  Dexter,  and  others, 
as  our  town  book  declares ;  and  whereas,  by  God's  merci- 
ful assistance,  I  was  the  procurer  of  the  purchase,  not  by 
monies  nor  payment,  the  natives  being  so  shy  and  jealous 
that  monies  could  not  do  it,  but  by  that  language,  acquain- 
tance and  favor  with  the  natives,  and  other  advantages, 
which  it  pleased  God  to  give  me,  and  also  bore  the  charges 
and  venture  of  all  the  gratuities,  v/hich  I  gave  to  the  great 
sachems  and  other  sachems  and  natives  round  about  us. 


114  MEMOIR     OF 

and  lay  engaged  for  a  loving  and  peaceable  neighborhood 
with  them,  to  my  great  charge  and  travel ;  it  was  there- 
fore thought  fit  by  some  loving  friends,  that  I  should  re- 
ceive some  loving  consideration  and  gratuity,  and  it  was 
agreed  between  us,  that  every  person,  that  should  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  fellowship  of  enjoying  land  and  disposing 
of  the  purchase,  should  pay  thirty  shillings  unto  the  public 
stock  ;  and  first,  about  thirty  pounds  should  be  paid  unto 
myself,  by  thirty  shillmgs  a  person,  as  they  were  admitted  ; 
this  sum  I  received,  and  in  love  to  my  friends,  and  with 
respect  to  a  town  and  place  of  succor  for  the  distressed 
as  aforesaid,  I  do  acknowledge  the  said  sum  and  payment 
as  full  satisfaction  ;  and  whereas  in  the  year  one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  thirty-seven,*  so  called,  I  delivered  the 
deed  subscribed  by  the  two  aforesaid  chief  sachems,  so 
much  thereof  as  concerneth  the  aforementioned  lands, 
from  myself  and  from  my  heirs,  unto  the  whole  number  of 
the  purchasers,  with  all  my  power,  right  and  title  therein, 
reserving  only  unto  myself  one  single  share  equal  unto 
any  of  the  rest  of  that  number ;  I  now  again,  in  a  more 
formal  way,  under  my  hand  and  seal,  confirm  my  former 
resignation  of  that  deed  of  the  lands  aforesaid,  and  bind 
myself,  my  heirs,  my  executors,  my  administrators  and 
assigns,  never  to  molest  any  of  the  said  persons  already 
received,  or  hereafter  to  be  received,  into  the  society  of 
purchasers,  as  aforesaid ;  but  that  they,  their  heirs,  execu- 
tors, administrators  and  assigns,  shall  at  all  times  quietly 
and  peaceably  enjoy  the  premises  and  every  part  thereof, 
and  I  do  further  by  these  presents  bind  myself,  my  heirs, 
my  executors,  my  administrators  and  assigns,  never  to  lay 
any  claim,  nor  cause  any  claim  to  be  laid,  to  any  of  the 
lands  aforementioned,  or  unto  any  part  or  parcel  thereof, 
more  than  unto  my  own  single  share,  by  virtue  or  pretence 
of  any  former  bargain,  sale  or  mortgage  whatsoever,  or 
jointures,  thirds  or  entails  made  by  me,  the   said  Roger 

*  This  seems  to  be  loosely  expressed.  Mr.  Williams  could  not 
mean  that  he  delivered  the  deed  to  the  grantees  in  1637,  for  several 
of  the  persons  named,  did  not  arrive  in  Providence  till  after  April, 
]638.  (Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  92.)  His  own  deed  of  cession  is  dated 
Oct.  8,  1638.  He  probably  meant,  that  he  delivered  the  deed,  signed 
by  the  sachems  in  1637,  to  the  purchasers.  This  deed  was  dated 
March  24,  the  last  day  of  1637,  old  style. 


11  O  G  E  R     W  1  L  L  1  A  M  S.  115 

Williams,  or  of  any  other  person,  either  for,  by,  through  or 
under  me^  In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my 
hand  and  sealj  the  twentieth  day  of  December,  in  the 
present  year  one  thousand  six  hundred  sixty-one. 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS,  (Seal.*) 

"  Signed,  sealed  and  delivered  in  the  presence  of  us, 
Thomas  Smith,  Joseph  Carpenter.  Memorandum,  the 
Words,  of  the  purchase,  were  interlined  before  these  presents 
were  sealed.  I,  Mary  Williams,  wife  unto  Roger  Wil- 
liams, do  assent  unto  the  premises.  Witness  my  hand, 
this  twentieth  day  of  December,  in  this  present  year  one 
thousand  six  hundred  sixty-one. 

The  mark  of  (M.  W.)    MARY  WILLIAMS.t 
"  Acknowledged  and  subscribed  before  me, 

-  WILLIAM  FIELD,  Assistant 
"  Enrolled,  April  the  Gth,  1662,  pr.  me, 

"  THOMAS  OLNEY,  Junr.,  Town  Clerk." 

From  this  document,  it  appears,  that  the  twelve  persons 
to  whom  the  lands,  on  the  Moshassuck  and  Wanasquatucket 
rivers,  were  conveyed  by  Mr.  Williams,  did  not  pay  him 
any  part  of  the  thirty  pounds,  which  he  received ;  but  that 
the  sum  of  thirty  shillings  was  exacted  of  every  person 
who  was  afterwards  admitted,  to  form  a  common  stock. 
From  this  stock,  thirty  pounds  were  paid  to  Mr.  Williams, 
for  the  reasons  mentioned  in  the  instrument  last  quoted. J 

For  the  lands  on  the  Pawtuxet  river,  however,  Mr. 
Williams  received  twelve-thirteenths  of  twenty  pounds, 
from  the  twelve  persons  named  in  the  deed  of  October 
8,  1638.  On  the  same  day,  the  following  instrument  was 
executed : — 

"  It  is  agreed,  this  day  abovesaid,  that  all  the  meadow 
grounds  at  Pawtuxet,  bounding  upon  the  fresh  river,  on 
both  sides,  are  to  be  impropriated  unto  those  thirteen  per- 
sons,   being   now    incorporated  together  in   our    town   of 

*  An  anchor,  redining'. 

t  We  are  surprised  at  the  form  of  this  signature.  That  Mrs. 
Wilhams  could  not  write,  would  be  incredible,  if  it  were  not  ren- 
dered certain  that  she  could  write,  by  a  reference  to  her  letters,  in 
a  public  document  at  Providence.  It  is  probable,  that  she  wrote 
the  initials,  believing  them  to  be  sufficient ;  and  some  person  added 
the  words,  the  mark  of,  and  wrote  the  name  at  length. 

t  Mr.  Backus  so  understood  it.     Vol.  i.  p.  93, 


116  MEMOIR     OF 

Providence,  viz.  :  Ezekiel  Holliman,  Francis  Weston, 
Roger  Williams,  Thomas  Olney,  Robert  Cole,  William 
Carpenter,  William  Harris,  John  Throckmorton,  Richard 
Waterman,  John  Greene,  Thomas  James,  William  Arnold, 
Stukely  W^estcott ;  and  to  be  equally  divided  among  them, 
and  every  one  to  pay  an  equal  proportion  to  raise  up  the 
sum  of  twenty  pounds  for  the  same ;  and  if  it  shall  come 
to  pass,  that  some,  or  any  one,  of  these  thirteen  persons 
aforesaid,  do  not  pay  or  give  satisfaction  of  his  or  their 
equal  proportion  of  the  aforesaid  sum  of  twenty  pounds, 
by  this  day  eight  weeks,  which  will  be  the  17th  day  of  the 
10th  month  next  ensuing,  then  they  or  he  shall  leave  their 
or  his  proportion  of  meadow  grounds  unto  the  rest  of  those 
thirteen  persons,  to  be  at  their  disposing,  who  shall  make 
up  the  whole  sum  of  twenty  pounds,  which  is  to  be  paid  to 
Roger  Williams." 

This  money  was  punctually  paid  on  the  3d  of  Decem- 
ber following,  and  was  acknowledged  as  follows  : — 

*'  According  to  former  agreement,  I  received  of  the 
neighbors  abovesaid,  the  full  sum  of  .£18  lis.  3d.    Per  me, 

ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

He  thus  retained  an  equal  share  in  the  lands  on  the 
Pawtuxet  river,  which  were  very  valuable  to  the  new  settlers, 
on  account  of  the  natural  meadows  along  its  banks.  These 
lands  were  afterwards  the  occasion  of  a  protracted  contention. 

From  the  facts  which  we  have  stated,  it  appears,  that 
Mr.  Williams  generously  admitted  the  first  twelve  proprie- 
tors of  the  Providence  purchase  to  an  equal  share  with 
himself,  without  exacting  from  them  any  remuneration. 
The  thirty  pounds  which  he  received  were  paid  by  suc- 
ceeding settlers,  at  the  rate  of  thirty  shillings  each.  But 
this  sum  of  thirty  pounds  was  not  paid  to  him,  as  an  equiv- 
alent for  the  land.  It  was,  as  he  calls  it,  a  "  loving  gra- 
tuity," and  was  intended  to  remunerate  him  for  the 
presents  which  he  had  given  to  the  Indians,  and  for  the 
expenses  which  he  had  incurred  in  procuring  the  lands. 
But  he  affirmed,  that  all  which  he  received  was  far  less 
than  he  expended.*  The  same  may  be  said  respecting 
the  money  paid  for  the  Pawtuxet  lands. 

*  He  found  ''  Indian  gifts"  very  costly.  He  was  under  the  neces- 
sity of  making  frequent  presents.     He  sa.ys,  that  he  let  the  Indians 


ftOGER     WILLIAMS.  117 

The  conduct  of  Mr.  Williams,  in  thet^e  transactions, 
must  be  acknowledged  to  have  been  highly  honorable,  dis- 
interested and  liberal.  He  held  the  title  to  the  whole  ter- 
ritory, and  he  might,  apparently,  have  amassedwealth  and 
gratified  ambition,  by  retaining  the  control  of  the  town, 
and  selling  the  lands,  to  be  held  of  him  as  the  proprietor. 
But  he  renounced  all  plans  of  power  and  emolument ;  he 
placed  himself  on  an  equality  with  the  other  settlers,  and 
surrendered  the  territory  to  the  whole  body  of  freemen, 
among  whom  he  claimed  no  other  influence  than'that  which 
sprung  from  his  personal  character.  The  sum  which  he 
received  was  not  even  a  remuneration  for  his  actual  ex- 
penses in  procuring  the  territory. 

It  does  not  diminish  this  praise,  that  the  settlers  were 
obliged  to  satisfy  the  claim.s  of  many  individual  Indians. 
The  grant  from  the  sachems  might,  perhaps,  have  been 
considered  as  a  full  title  ;  but  the  justice  and  humanity  of 
Roger  Williams  and  his  friends,  led  them  to  make  com- 
pensation to  the  natives  who  occupied  the  territory.  The 
whole  sum  paid  to  Mr.  Williams  and  to  the  Indians,  for 
Providence  and  Pawtuxet,  was  stated  by  William  Harris, 
in  1677,  to  have  been  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds. 

have  his  shallop  and  pinnace  at  command,  transporting  fifty  at  a 
time,  and  lodging  fifty  at  his  house  ;  that  he  never  denied  them  any 
thing  lawful ;  that  when  he  established  a  trading  house  at  Narra- 
ganset,  Canonicus  had  freely  what  he  desired;  and  when  the  old 
chief  was  about  to  die,  he  sent  for  Mr.  Williams,  and  '■'  desired  to 
be  buried  in  my  cloth,  of  free  gift." 

11 


118  MEMOIR     OF 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Settlement  of  the  town  of  Providence — Whatcheer — islands  of  PrU' 
dence.  Patience  and  Hope. 

Our  account  of  the  division  of  the  lands  has  led  us 
onward  to  a  period  more  than  two  years  after  Mr.  Williams* 
arrival.  Some  time  must  have  been  spent  in  his  negotia- 
tions with  the  sachems  ;  but  he  certainly  erected  a  house 
soon  after  his  landing,  for  in  a  letter,  written  within  a 
short  time  from  that  event,  he  says,  "  Miantinomo  kept  his 
barbarous  court  lately  at  my  house,"  and  in  his  letter  to 
Major  Mason,  he  mentions,  that  he  entertained  General 
Stoughton,  at  his  house,  in  May,  1637,  when  the  Massa- 
chusetts troops  were  on  their  march  against  the  Pequods. 

It  is  probable,  that  Mrs.  Williams  and  her  two  children 
came  from  Salem  to  Providence,  in  the  summer  of  1636, 
in  company  with  several  persons,  who  wished  to  join  their 
exiled  pastor.* 

The  family  of  Mr.  Williams  was  now  dependent  on  his 
exertions  for  support.  No  supplies  could  be  derived  from 
Massachusetts.  The  natives  were  unable  to  afford  much 
aid.  It  is  probable,  that  Mr.  Williams  had  nearly  expended 
all  his  funds,  in  the  support  of  his  family  during  his 
absence,  and  in  the  negotiations  with  the  Indians.  Of  his 
poverty ,t  there  is  evidence,  in  a  touching  incident,  men- 
tioned in  his  letter  to  Major  Mason.  It  is  alike  honorable 
to  all  the  parties  .  "  It  pleased  the  Father  of  Spirits  to  touch 
many  hearts,  dear  to  him,  with  many  relentings ;  amongst 
which,  that  great  and  pious  soul,  Mr.  Winslow,  melted, 
and  kindly  visited  me  at  Providence,  and  put  a  piece  of 
gold  into  the  hands  of  my  wife,  for  our  supply." 

In  a  deed,  which  was  enrolled  January  29,  1667,  Mr. 
Williams  says,  that  he  planted,  with  his  own  hands,  at  his 
first  coming,  the  two  Indian  fields,  Whatcheer  and  Saxi- 

*  Throckmorton,  Olney  and  Westcott,  three  of  the  fir&t  proprietors, 
were  members  of  the  Salem  church.     Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  371. 

t  Hubbard  repeatedly  alludes,  in  a  somewhat  taunting  tone,  to  the 
poverty  of  Roger  Williams.— pp.  205,  350. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  119 

frax  Hill,  which  he  had  purchased  of  the  natives.  Thus 
was  he  forced,  as  at  many  other  times,  to  resort  to  manual 
labor  for  his  subsistence.  In  his  reply  to  Mr.  Cotton,  (p. 
3S)  he  says  :  ''It  is  not  unknown  to  many  witnesses,  in 
Plymouth,  Salem  and  Providence,  that  the  discusser's  time 
hath  not  been  spent  (though  as  much  as  any  others  whoso- 
ever) altogether  in  spiritual  labors  and  public  exercises  of 
the  word  ;  but  day  and  night,  at  home  and  abroad,  on  the 
land  and  water,  at  the  hoe,  at  the  oar,  for  bread."  But  he 
sustained  all  his  labors  and  hardships  with  a  patient  spirit, 
and  with  a  steadfast  adherence  to  his  principles. 

His  house  was,  undoubtedly,  erected  near  the  spot 
where  he  landed,  and  a  few  rods  eastward  of  the  celebra- 
ted spring.*  Here  the  wanderer  found  a  resting  place. 
This  was  his  home,  for  more  than  forty  years.  Here  he 
died,  and  near  the  site  of  his  dwelling  his  ashes  were 
deposited. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  effort  of  the  imagination,  to 
contrast  the  situation  of  Providence  at  the  time  of  the 
settlement,  with  the  present  condition  of  that  beautiful  and 
flourishing  town.  Where  now  are  busy  streets,  and  ample 
warehouses,  and  elegant  mansions,  and  a  population  of 
nearly  20,000  souls,  were,  at  that  time,  dense  forests, 
and  a  few  scattered  Indian  families.  How  astonishing  is 
the  change  !  Roger  Williams  himself,  with  all  his  vigor  of 
imagination,  and  his  ardent  temperament,  could  not  have 
anticipated  the  expansion  of  his  little  settlement  to  its 
present  amplitude,  beauty  and  strength.  The  glorious 
vision  could  not  have  visited  his  mind ;  but  he  acted  under 
the  power  of  that  prophetic  faith,  which  assured  him  of 
success,  in  his  efforts  for  the  welfare  of  men.  He  looked 
beyond  the  present,  to  the  bright  future,  and  was  confident, 
that  his  principles,  though  then  misunderstood  and  rejected, 
would  ultimately  triumph. 

In  the  course  of  two  years,  Mr.  Williams  was  joined  by 
a  number  of  friends  from  Massachusetts,  with  whom,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  shared  the  lands  which  he  had  obtained. 

"  The  author  of  Whatcheer,  (p.  163)  has  accommodated  his  hero 
with  the  dwelling  of  a  deceased  Indian  powaw.  Poets  have  a  license 
to  build  castles  in  the  air,  or  on  the  land.  I  fear  that  Roger  Williams 
was  not  so  easily  furnished  with  a  habitation.  It  was,  howeverj  we 
may  suppose,  sufficiently  humble. 


120  MEMOIR    OF 

The  community,  thus  formed,  were  invested  with  the 
power  of  admitting  others  to  the  privileges  of  citizenship. 
Their  number  was  soon  increased,  by  emigrants  from 
Massachusetts,  and  from  Europe.*  It  was  the  design  of 
Mr.  Williams,  that  his  colony  should  be  open  to  all  persons 
who  might  choose  to  reside  there,  without  regard  to  their 
religious  opinions.  He  was  careful,  nevertheless,  to  pro- 
vide for  the  maintenance  of  the  civil  peace.  Every  in- 
habitant was  required  to  subscribe  the  following  covenant : 

*'  We,  whose  names  are  here  under-written,  being  desir- 
ous to  inhabit  in  the  town  of  Providence,  do  promise  to 
submit  ourselves,  in  active  or  passive  obedience,  to  all  such 
orders  or  agreements  as  shall  be  made  for  public  good  of 
the  body,  in  an  orderly  way,  by  the  major  consent  of  the 
present  inhabitants,  masters  of  families,  incorporated  to- 
gether into  a  township,  and  such  others  whom  they  shall 
admit  unto  the  same,  only  in  civil  things.^' 

This  simple  instrument,  which  combines  the  principles  of 
a  pure  democracy,  and  of  unrestricted  religious  liberty,  was 
the  basis  of  the  first  government  in  Providence.  It  was 
undoubtedly  drawn  up  by  Roger  Williams.  It  bears  the 
impress  of  his  character,  and  it  was  the  germ  of  those  free 
institutions,  under  which  Rhode-Island  has  flourished  till 
the  present  day. 

The  government  of  the  town  was  thus  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  inhabitants ;  and  the  legislative,  judicial  and 
executive  functions  were  exercised,  for  several  years,  by  the 
citizens  in  town  meeting.  Two  deputies  were  appointed, 
from  time  to  time,  whose  duties  were,  to  preserve  order,  to 
settle  disputes,  to  call  town  meetings,  to  preside  in  them,  . 
and  to  see  that  their  resolutions  were  executed.!  But  the 
power  of  the  deputies  was  very  limited,  and  their  term  of 
office  short.  A  form  of  government  so  simple  could  not 
exist,  except  in  a  small  community,  and  among  men  whose 
moral  principles  were  pure,  and  their  habits  peaceful. 
Winthrop  was  mistaken,  when  he  asserted  of  the  settlers 


*  AmoiiiT  these,  were  Chad  Brown,  William  Field,  Thomas  Harris, 
William  Wickenden,  Robert  Williams  (brother  of  Roger)  Richard 
Scott,  William  Reynolds,  John  Warner,  Benedict  Arnold,  Joshua 
Winsor  pnd  Thomas  Hopkins.     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  93. 

\  Gov.  Hopkins,  History  of  Providence.  2  Mass.  His.  Col.  ix.  p.  183. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  121 

at  Providence,  that  they  "  would  have  no  magistrates."* 
If  they  had  not  the  usual  forms,  they  had  the  essence  of 
maoristracy. 

The  settlers  applied  themselves  to  agriculture,  for  sub- 
sistence. An  intelligent  antiquarian,  of  Providence,  whose 
opinions  are  authority  on  all  points  touching  its  early  his- 
tory, says,t  that  the  first  inhabitants  settled  ''  on  such  places 
as  were  most  convenient,  and  planted  their  corn  on  the  old 
Indian  fields,  as  they  could  agree  among  themselves. 
When  their  number  had  increased,  they  laid  out  what  is 
now  the  Main  street,  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  and 
divided  the  land  eastward  of  the  street,  into  lots  of  six 
acres  each,  being  of  equal  breadth,  and  extending  back  to 
what  is  now  Hope  street.  There  were  eventually  one  hun- 
dred and  two  of  these  six  acre  lots,  extending  from  Mile 
End  Brook,  which  enters  the  river  a  little  north  of  Fox 
Point,  to  Harrington's  Lane,  on  the  north,  which  lane  is 
now  the  dividing  line  between  Providence  and  North 
Providence.  Each  proprietor  had  one  of  these  six  acre 
lots,  and  on  which  he  built  his  house.  How  they  were 
located,  whether  by  lot  or  draft,  or  by  choice,  I  am  not 
informed;  but  it  is  probable  that  the  first  comers  had  their 
choice,  as  the  six  acre  lot  of  Roger  Williams  was  the  place 
where  he  first  landed,  and  had  built  his  house. |  The 
street,  now  Bowen  street,  leading  from  Main  to  Benefit 
street,  divides  that  part  of  his  lot  nearly  in  the  middle. 
The  object  of  locating  themselves  so  near  together  was  for 
security  and  mutual  aid  against  the  Indians,  and  in  con- 
formity to  the  practice  in  Europe.  Each  proprietor,  besides 
his  town  lot,  as  it  was  called,  took  up  out  land,  upland  and 
meadows,  by  grant  of  the  whole  in  proprietors'  meeting. 
These  grants  were  entered  on  the  records.     None  of  them, 


*  Vol.  i.  p.  293. 

t  John  Howland,  Esq.  in  a  letter  to  the  author. 

t  Moses  Brown  says  (Rhode-Island  Register,  1828)  "  Roger  Wil- 
liams' lot  was  No.  38,  northward  from  Mile  End  Cove,  at  the  south 
end  of  the  town ;  William  Harris'  was  No.  36 ;  John  Smith's,  No. 
41 ;  Joshua  Verins',  No.  39,  adjoining  on  the  north  of  R,oger  Wil- 
liams' lot ;  Francis  Wickes',  No.  35.  The  Court  House  appears  to  be 
standing  on  No.  34.  These  first  six  settlers  all  became  proprietors, 
though  Francis  Wickes  and  Thomas  Angell  did  not  receive  full  shares 
till  they  became  of  age," 
11* 


122  MEMOIR    OF 

at  first,  took  up  sufficient  for  a  farm  in  one  place.  Each 
one,  besides  his  upland,  as  it  was  termed,  or  planting  land, 
had,  in  another  place,  and  frequently  quite  distant,  his  pro- 
portion of  meadow  land.  This  was  necessary,  because 
there  was  no  hay  seed  known  or  in  use.  They  had  no 
grass  for  winter  fodder,  but  bog  or  salt  meadow,  or  thatch, 
and  each  must  have  his  share  of  this,  or  his  cattle  would 
perish,  or  browse  in  the  woods  in  winter." 

Roger  Williams,  in  addition  to  his  six  acre  town  lot, 
had  a  lot  in  the  neighborhood  of  Whatcheer  cove.  The 
deed,  already  quoted,  may  be  appropriately  introduced  here, 
as  a  document  which  belongs  to  the  history  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams and  of  the  town : 

"  Whereas,  by  the  good  Providence  of  God,  I,  Roger 
Williams,  purchased  this  plantation  of  the  natives,  partly 
by  the  favors  which  I  had  long  before  with  the  sachems 
gotten  at  my  cost  and  hazard,  and  partly  with  my  own 
monies,  paid  them,  in  satisfaction  for  the  settling  of  the 
said  plantation,  in  the  midst  of  the  barbarians  round  about 
us  ;  and  whereas  for  the  name  of  God  and  public  good,  and 
especially  for  the  receiving  of  such  as  were  troubled  else- 
where about  the  worship  of  God,  I  freely  parted  with  my 
whole  purchase  unto  the  township,  or  commonalty,  of  the 
then  inhabitants,  and  yet  reserved  to  myself  the  two 
Indian  fields,  called  Whatcheer  and  Saxifrax  Hill,  as  hav- 
ing peculiarly  satisfied  the  owners  of  those  fields  for  them, 
besides  my  general  purchase  of  the  whole  from  the  sachems, 
and  also  planted  both  those  fields  at  my  first  coming  as  my 
own  peculiar  with  mine  own  hands,  and  whereas  the  town 
of  Providence  by  their  deputies,  then  called  five  Disposers, 
William  Field  was  one,  long  since  laid  out  unto  me  the 
aforesaid  field  called  Whatcheer,  and  adjoined  my  six 
acre  lot  unto  it,  making  up  together  twelve  acres  by  the 
eighteen  foot  pole,  and  I  having  forgotten  my  bounds,  the 
town  deputies,  William  Field  and  Arthur  Fenner,  have 
since  laid  out  and  measured  the  said  twelve  acres  unto  me 
by  the  eighteen  foot  pole  as  aforesaid.  These  are  to  cer- 
tify unto  all  men,  that  I,  the  said  Roger  Williams,  have,  for 
a  full  satisfaction  already  received  from  James  Ellis,  of 
Providence,  sold  and  demised  unto  the  said  James  Ellis, 
the  said  twelve  acres  aforesaid,  bounded  on  the  east  by 
the  river,  on  the   west  by  a    highway   between  the  said 


ROGER     WILLIAMS,  123 

twelve  acres  and  the  land  of  Nicholas  Power  deceased,  on 
the  north  by  a  highway  lying  between  the  said  twelve  acres 
and  William  Field's  land,  and  on  the  south  by  Mr.  Bene- 
dict Arnold's  land  ;  the  aforesaid  twelve  acres  J  do  by  these 
presents  demise  and  alienate  from  myself,  my  heirs,  execu- 
tors, Slc.  to  the  aforesaid  James  Ellis,  his  heirs,  executors, 
&-C.  with  all  the  appertenances  and  privileges  thereof. 
Witness  my  hand  and  seal, 

ROGER  WILLIAMS.     [An  arrow.) 
In  the  presence  of  us  witnesses,  Arthur  Fenner,  William 

Field,  enrolled  the  29th   day  of  January,  in  the    year 

1667. 

Pr.  me,  SHADRACH  MANTON,  Toian  Clerk.'' 

This  field,  Whatcheer,  was  afterwards  sold  to  Arthur 
Fenner,  Esquire,  and  is  now  occupied,  as  the  family  seat  of 
the  Hon.  James  Fenner,  formerly  Governor  of  Rhode- 
Island. 

We  may  mention  here,  that  Mr.  Williams  obtained  the 
island  of  Prudence,  from  the  Indians,  and  held  it  as  a  joint 
proprietor  with  Governor  W^inthrop,  of  Massachusetts. 
The  following  letter  relates  to  this  transaction  :* 

"  The  last  of  the  7oeeJc,  I  think  the  2Sth  of  the  8th, 
''  Sir, 

"  The  bearer,  Miantinomo,  resolving  to  go  on  his  visit,  I 
am  bold  to  request  a  word  of  advice  from  you,  concerning 
a  proposition  made  by  Canonicus  and  himself  to  me  some 
half  year  since.  Canonicus  gave  an  island  in  this  bay  to 
Mr.  Oldham,  by  name  Chibachuwese,  upon  condition,  as  it 
should  seem,  that  he  would  dwell  there  near  unto  them. 
The  Lord  (in  whose  hands  all  our  hearts  are)  turning  their 
affections  towards  myself,  they  desired  me  to  remove  thither 
and  dwell  nearer  to  them.  I  have  answered  once  and 
again,  that  for  the  present  I  mind  not  to  remove  ;  but  if  I 
have  it  from  them,  I  would  give  them  satisfaction  for  it,  and 
build  a  little  house  and  put  in  some  swine,  as  understand- 
ing the  place  to  have  store  of  fish  and  good  feeding  for 
swine.  Of  late  I  have  heard,  that  Mr.  Gibbons,  upon 
occasion,  motioned  your  desire  and  his  own  of  putting 
some  swine  on  some  of  these  islands,  which  hath  made  me 
since  more  desire  to  obtain  it,  because  I  might  thereby  not 

*  Copied  firora  3  His.  Col.  i,  165-. 


124  MEMOIR     OF 

only  benefit  myself,  but  also  pleasure  yourself,  whom  I 
more  desire  to  pleasure  and  honor.  I  spoke  of  it  now  to 
this  sachem,  and  he  tells  me,  that  because  of  the  store  of 
fish,  Canonicus  desires  that  I  would  accept  half,  (it  being- 
spectacle-wise,  and  between  a  mile  or  two  in  circuit,  as  I 
guess)  and  he  would  reserve  the  other ;  but  I  think,  if  I  go 
over,  I  shall  obtain  the  whole.  Your  loving  counsel,  how 
far  it  may  be  inoffensive,  because  it  was  once  (upon  a  con- 
dition not  kept,)  Mr.  Oldham's.  So,  with  respective 
salutes  to  your  kind  self  and  Mrs.  Winthrop,  I  rest, 
*'  Your  worship's  unfeigned,  in  all  I  may, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"For  his  much  honored  Mr.  Governor,  these." 

Governor  Winthrop  retained  his  moiety  of  the  island, 
and  gave  it,  in  his  will,  to  his  son  Stephen.* 

Mr.  Williams  also  owned  the  islands  Patience  and  Hope. 
The  names  of  the  three  islands  are  indicative  of  his  mind. 
William  Harris  said,  in  1677,  in  a  somewhat  reproachful 
tone,  that  these  islands  were  "  all  put  away."  Mr.  Wil- 
liams sold  them,  perhaps,  as  he  certainly  did  some  other 
portions  of  his  property,  to  maintain  himself  and  family, 
during  his  long  and  unrequited  toils,  in  England,  for  the 
welfare  of  the  colony.  To  a  native  of  Rhode-Island,  these 
islands  should  be  interesting  monuments  of  the  virtues  and 
services  of  her  founder. 

Having  thus  stated  the  manner  in  which  the  settlement 
at  Providence  was  commenced,  we  must  now  return  to  the 
period  of  the  first  arrival  of  Mr.  Williams,  and  narrate  briefly 
his  agency  in  averting  the  imminent  danger  of  a  general 
league  among  the  natives  for  the  destruction  of  the 
colonists. 

*  Journal,  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  125 


CHAPTER    X. 

Mr.  Williams  prevents  the  Indian  league — war  with  the  Pequods — 
their  defeat  and  ruin. 

The  Pequods  were,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  the 
most  warlike  tribe  of  Indians  in  New-England,  and  the 
most  hostile  to  the  colonists,  not  perhaps  so  much  from  a 
greater  degree  of  ferocity,  as  from  a  clearer  foresight  of  the 
effects  which  the  natives  had  reason  to  apprehend  from  the 
increase  of  the  whites. 

In  1634,  Captains  Stone  and  Norton,  of  Massachusetts, 
with  eight  other  Englishmen,  were  murdered  by  the  In- 
dians, in  a  small  trading  vessel,  on  Connecticut  river.  It 
is  not  certain,  that  the  murderers  were  Pequods,  but  they 
fled  to  this  tribe  for  protection,  and  divided  with  them  the 
property  which  they  had  plundered.  The  Pequods  thus 
became  responsible  for  the  crime  ;  and  the  magistrates  of 
Massachusetts  sent  to  them  messengers  to  demand  satisfac- 
tion, but  without  success.  The  Pequods  afterwards  sent 
messengers,  with  gifts,  to  Massachusetts,  exculpating  the 
tribe  from  the  guilt  of  the  murder.  The  Governor  and 
Council,  after  a  conference  of  several  days,  and  a  consul- 
tation, as  usual,  with  the  principal  ministers,  concluded 
with  them  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship.* 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  147,  149.  The  Pequods  agreed  to  deliver  up 
the  individuals  who  were  engaged  fn  the  murder,  and  to  pay  four 
hundred  fathoms  of  wampumpeag,  forty  beaver  skins,  and  thirty 
otter  skins.  While  the  Pequod  ambassadors  were  at  Boston,  a  party 
of  the  Narragansets  came  as  far  as  Naponset,  and  it  was  rumored 
that  their  object  was  to  murder  the  Pequod  ambassadors.  The 
magistrates  had  a  conference  at  Roxbury,  with  the  Narragansets, 
(among  whom  were  two  sachems)  and  persuaded  them  to  make 
peace  with  the  Pequods,  to  which  the  sachems  agreed,  the  magis- 
trates ha^dng  secretly  promised  them,  as  a  condition,  a  part  of  the 
wampumpeag,  which  the  Pequods  had  stipulated  to  pay.  The 
note  of  Mr.  Savage,  on  this  affair,  deserves  to  be  repeated: 

"  If  any  doubt  has  ever  been  entertained,  in  Europe  or  America,  of 
the  equitable  and  pacific  principles  of  the  founders  of  New-England, 
in  their  relations  with  the  Indians,  the  secret  history,  in  the  forego- 
ing paragraph,  of  this  negotiation,  should  dissipate  it.    By  the  unholy 


126  MEMOIR     OF 

But  no  treaty  could  appease  the  jealous  hostility  of  the 
Pequods.  In  July,  1636,  a  short  time  after  Mr.  Williams' 
removal  to  Providence,  a  party  of  Indians  murdered  Mr. 
John  Oldham,  near  Block-Island,  whither  he  had  gone 
from  Massachusetts,  in  a  small  barque,  for  purposes  of 
trade.  The  murderers  fled  to  the  Pequods,  by  whom  they 
were  protected.  It  was  suspected,  however,  that  the  mur- 
der was  contrived  by  some  of  the  Narragansets  and  Nian- 
ticks ;  and  there  was  evidently  some  disposition  among 
these  tribes  and  the  Pequods  to  form  a  league  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  English. 

The  first  intelligence  of  the  murder  of  Mr.  Oldham,  and 
of  the  proposed  league,  was  communicated  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, in  a  letter  to  Governor  Vane,  at  Boston,  a  few  days 
after  the  event.  With  a  spirit  of  forgiveness  and  philan- 
thropy, which  honors  his  memory,  he  promptly  informed 
those  who  had  so  recently  expelled  him  from  the  colony, 
of  the  peril  which  now  threatened  them.  It  may  be 
alleged,  that  self-preservation  impelled  him  to  appeal  to 
Massachusetts  for  assistance  to  defeat  a  project,  which,  if 
accomplished,  w^ould  have  overwhelmed  himself  and  his 
colony  in  ruin.  But  his  influence  with  the  Indians  was  so 
great,  that  it  is  probable  he  might  have  secured  his  own 
safety  and  that  of  his  companions.  The  merit  of  his  gen- 
erous mediation  ought  not  to  be  sullied,  because  his  own 

maxims  of  vulgar  policy,  the  discord  of  these  unfriendly  nations, 
would  have  been  encouraged,  and  our  European  fathers  should  have 
employed  the  passions  of  the  aborigines  for  their  mutual  destruction. 
On  the  contrary,  an  honest  artifice  was  resorted  to  for  their  reconcil- 
iation, and  the  tribute  received  by  us  from  one  offending  party  was, 
by  a  Christian  deception,  divided  with  their  enemies,  to  procure 
mutual  peace.  Such  mediation  is  more  useful  than  victory,  and 
more  honorable  than  conquest." 

It  may  be  added,  here,  as  an  illustration  of  the  temper  of  the 
times,  that  Mr.  Eliot^  the  Indian  apostle,  expressed,  in  a  sermon, 
some  disapprobation  of  this  treaty  with  the  Pequods,  for  this  reason, 
among  others,  that  the  magistrates  and  ministers  acted  without  au- 
thority from  the  people.  He  was  called  to  account,  and  Mr.  Cotton 
and  two  other  ministers  were  appointed  to  convince  him  of  his  error. 
The  good  man  appeared  to  be  convinced,  and  agreed  to  make  a 
public  retraction.  It  is  stated  by  Dr.  Bentley,  that  Mr.  Williams^ 
then  at  Salem,  expressed  his  disapprobation  of  the  treaty,  doubtless. 
on  the  same  ground,  of  the  combination  of  civil  and  clerical  agency 
in  the  transaction.  But  Mr.  Williams  would  not  retract,  af\er  tl\e 
example  of  Eliot. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  127 

Welfare  was.  at  the  same  time  advanced.  Violent  passions 
often  make  men  forget  or  disregard  their  own  interests.  A 
vindictive  spirit  might  have  beien  willing  to  hazard  its  own 
safety,  for  the  pleasure  of  ample  vengeance  on  the  authors 
<Df  its  wrongs. 

The  Massachusetts  government,  on  the  24th  of  August, 
sent  by  water  an  armed  force  of  eighty  volunteers,  under 
the  command  of  John  Endicott,  Esq.  with  instructions  to 
*'put  to  death  the  men  of  Block-Island,  but  to  spare  the 
women  and  children,  and  to  bring  them  away,  and  to  take 
possession  of  the  island ;  and  from  thence  to  go  to  the  Pe- 
quods,  to  demand  the  murderers  of  Captain  Stone  and 
other  English,  some  thousand  fathoms  of  wampum,  for 
damages,  and  some  of  their  children  as  hostages,  which,  if 
they  should  refuse,  they  were  to  obtain  it  by  force."* 
These  stern  orders  were  not  strictly  executed  ;  yet  many 
Indians  were  killed,  a  large  number  of  wigwams  were 
burnt,  at  Block-island  and  on  Connecticut  river,  some 
corn  was  destroyed,  and  other  damage  was  done.  The 
troops  returned  to  Boston,  on  the  14th  of  September,  with* 
out  the  loss  of  a  man. 

This  expedition  had  little  eftect,  except  to  exasperate  the 
natives.  Mr.  Endicott  was  the  object  of  many  censures  for 
returning,  without  striking  a  severer  blow.  But  his  force 
was  small,  the  winter  was  approaching,  and  prudence,  un- 
doubtedly, required  his  return. 

The  Pequods  became  more  decidedly  hostile.  They  killed 
several  white  persons,  and  made  strenuous  efforts  to  induce 
the  powerful  Narraganset  tribe  to  forget  their  mutual  ani- 
mosity, and  join  with  them  in  a  war  of  extermination 
against  the  English,  "  There  had  been,"  says  Hutchin- 
son, (vol.  i.  p,  60)  "  a  fixed,  inveterate  enmity,  between  the 
two  tribes ;  but  on  this  occasion  the  Pequods  were  willing 
to  smother  it,  their  enmity  against  the  English  being  the 
strongest  of  the  two  :  and  although  they  had  never  heard 
the  story  of  Polypheme  and  Ulysses,  yet  they  artfully  urged, 
that  the  English  were  come  to  dispossess  them  of  their 
country,  and  that  all  the  Narragansets  could  hope  for  from 
their  friendship,  was  the  favor  of  being  the  last  devoured  : 
whereas,  if  the  Indians  would  unite,  they  might  easily  de- 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  192. 


128  M  E  M  O I  «    OF 

stroy  the  English,  or  force  them  to  leave  the  country,  with- 
out being  exposed  themselves  to  any  hazard.  They  need 
not  come  to  open  battles  ;  firing  their  houses,  killing  their 
cattle,  and  lying  in  wait  for  them  as  they  went  about  their 
ordinary  business,  would  soon  deprive  them  of  all  means 
of  subsisting.  But  the  Narragansets  preferred  the  present 
pleasure  of  revenge  upon  their  mortal  enemies,  to  the 
future  happiness  of  themselves  and  their  posterity." 

The  chief  merit  of  preventing  this  league,  and  thuSy 
perhaps,  saving  the  whites  from  destruction,  is  due  to  Mr. 
Williams.  The  magistrates  of  Massachusetts  solicited  his 
mediation  with  the  Narragansets.  They  did  not  ask  it  in 
vain.  Mr.  Williams  instantly  undertook  the  service,  and 
with  much  toil,  expense  and  hazard,  he  succeeded  in  de- 
feating the  endeavors  of  the  Pequods  to  win  over  the  Nar- 
ragansets to  a  coalition  against  the  English.  Mr.  Yf  illiams, 
in  his  letter  to  Major  Mason,  has  incidentally  related  his 
agency  in  this  affair.  It  is  due  to  him,  to  quote  here  his 
own  simple  and  energetic  words  : 

"  Upon  letters  received  from  the  Governor  and  Council 
at  Boston,  requesting  me  to  use  my  utmost  and  speediest 
endeavors  to  break  and  hinder  the  league  labored  for  by 
the  Pequods  and  Mohegans  against  the  English,  (excusing 
the  not  sending  of  company  and  supplies  by  the  haste  of 
the  business)  the  Lord  helped  me  immediately  to  put  my 
life  into  my  hand,  and,  scarce  acquainting  my  wife,  to 
ship  myself  alone,  in  a  poor  canoe,  and  to  cut  through  a 
stormy  wind,  with  great  seas,  every  minute  in  hazard  of 
life,  to  the  sachem's  house.  Three  days  and  nights  my 
business  forced  me  to  lodge  and  mix  with  the  bloody  Pe- 
quod  ambassadors,  whose  hands  and  arms,  methought, 
reeked  with  the  blood  of  my  countrymen,  murdered  and 
massacred  by  them  on  Connecticut  river,  and  from  whom 
I  could  not  but  nightly  look  for  their  bloody  knives  at  my 
own  throat  also.  God  wondrously  preserved  me,  and 
helped  me  to  break  to  pieces  the  Pequods'  negotiation  and 
design ;  and  to  make  and  finish,  by  many  travels  and 
charges,  the  English  league  with  the  Narragansets  and 
Mohegans  against  the  Pequods." 

In  consequence  of  Mr.  Williams'  agency,  the  Narragan- 
set  sachem,  Miantinomo,  came  to  Boston,  on  the  21st  of 
October,  1636,  with  two  sons  of  Canonicus,  besides  another 


ROGEH     WILLIAMS.  1*29 

sachem,  and  about  twenty  attendants.  He  was  received 
with  much  parade,  and  a  treaty  of  perpetual  peace  and 
alliance  was  concluded,  in  which  it  was  stipulated,  that 
neither  party  should  make  peace  with  the  Pequods  without 
the  consent  of  the  other.*  Governor  Winthrop  mentions 
a  circumstance,  which  is  highly  honorable  to  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, because  it  proves  the  confidence  which  was  reposed 
in  him,  both  by  the  Indians  and  by  the  government  of 
Massachusetts.  The  treaty  was  written  in  the  English 
language,  and  as  it  was  found  difficult  to  make  the  Indians 
understand  the  articles  perfectly,  "  we  agreed,"  says  Win- 
throp, "  to  send  a  copy  of  them  to  Mr.  Williams,  who 
could  best  interpret  them  to  them."  This  measure  was 
probably  adopted,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Indians^  who 
knew  that  Mr.  Williams  was  their  friend,  and  would  neither 
himself  deceive  them,  nor  connive  at  any  attempt  at  de- 
ception on  the  part  of  others.  It  is  a  proof,  also,  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Massachusetts  rulers,  on  this  occasion,  that 
they  were  willing  to  submit  their  proceedings  to  the  scru- 
tiny of  a  man,  whom  they  knew  to  be  a  steadfast  advocate 
of  the  rights  of  the  Indians. 

The  Pequods,  though  disappointed  in  their  attempts  to 
secure  the  alliance  of  the  Narragansets,  resolved  to  main- 
tain the  conflict  single  handed.  They  probably  thought, 
that  it  was  better  policy  to  make  one  desperate  effort  to 
overpower  the  English,  though  aided  by  the  Narragansets, 
than  to  wait  for  the  gradual  approach  of  that  ruin,  which 
they  had  the  forecast  to  apprehend  from  the  multiplication 
of  the  colonists.  It  was  a  bold  though  a  hopeless  effort. 
Their  undisciplined  bravery  and  simple  weapons  were  un- 
equal to  a  contest  with  the  military  skill  and  the  fire-arms 
of  the  English. 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Williams  to  Governor 
Winthrop  was  written  at  some  time  between  August,  1636, 
and  May,  1637.t 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  199.  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  61.  The  last  arti- 
cle of  the  treaty  provided,  that  it  should  continue  to  the  posterity  of 
both  parties.  Our  fathers  thus  treated  with  the  Indians  as  inde- 
pendent tribes.  They  did  not  then  dream  of  the  doctrine,  that  the 
Indians  are  mere  tenants  of  the  soil,  and  are  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  whites. 

t  3  His.  Col.  i.  p.  1.59. 

12 


130  MEMOIR     OF 

"  New  Providence,  this  2d  day  of  the  ioeek. 
"Sir, 

*'The  latter  end  of  the  last  week,  I  gave  notice  to  our 
neighbor  princes  of  your  intentions  and  preparations 
against  the  common  enemy,  the  Pequods.  At  my  first 
coming  to  them,  Canonicus  (morosus  seque  ac  barbarus 
senex)  was  very  sour,  and  accused  the  English  and  myself 
for  sending  the  plague  amongst  them,  and  threatening  to 
kill  him  especially. 

"  Such  tidings  (it  seems)  were  lately  brought  to  his  ears 
by  someof  his  flatterers  and  our  ill-willers.  I  discerned 
cause  of  bestirring  myself,  and  staid  the  longer,  and  at 
last  (through  the  mercy  of  the  Most  High)  I  not  only 
sweetened  his  spirit,  but  possessed  him,  that  the  plague  and 
other  sicknesses  were  alone  in  the  hand  of  the  one  God,, 
who  made  him  and  us,  who  being  displeased  with  the 
English  for  lying,  stealing,  idleness  and  uncleanness,  (the 
natives'  epidemical  sins,)  smote  many  thousands  of  us  our- 
selves with  general  and  late  mortalities. 

**  Miantinomo  kept  his  barbarous  court  lately  at  my  house^ 
and  with  him  I  have  far  better  dealing.  He  takes  some 
pleasure  to  visit  me,  and  sent  me  word  of  his  coming  over 
again  some  eight  days  hence. 

''They  pass  not  a  week  without  some  skirmishes,  though 
hitherto  little  loss  on  either  side.  They  were  glad  of  your 
preparations,  and  in  much  conference  with  themselves  and 
others,  (fishing,  de  industria,  for  instructions  from  them) 
I  gathered  these  observations,  which  you  may  please  (as 
cause  may  be)  to  consider  and  take  notice  of: 

"1.  They  conceive,  that  to  do  execution  to  purpose  on 
the  Pequods,  will  require  not  two  or  three  days  and  away^ 
but  a  riding  by  it  and  following  of  the  work  to  and  again 
the  space  of  three  weeks  or  a  month  ;  that  there  be  a  fall- 
ing off  and  a  retreat,  as  if  you  were  departed,  and  a  falling 
on  again  within  three  or  four  days,  when  they  are  returned 
ftgain  to  their  houses  securely  from  their  flight. 

"2.  That  if  any  pinnaces  come  in  ken,  they  presently 
prepare  for  flight,  women  and  old  men  and  children,  to  a 
swamp  some  three  or  four  miles  on  the  back  of  them,  a 
marvellous  great  and  secure  swamp,  which  they  called 
Ohomowauke,  which  signifies  owl's  nest,  and  by  another 
name,  Cappacommock,  which  signifies  a  refuge,  or  hiding 
place,  as  I  conceive. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  131 

**  3.  That,  therefore,  Niantick  (which  is  Miantinomo's 
place  of  rendezvous)  be  thought  on  for  the  ridiuff  and  re- 
tiring to  of  vessel  or  vessels,  which  place  is  faithful  to  the 
Narragansets,  and  at  present  enmity  with  the  Pequods. 

"  4.  They  also  conceive  it  easy  for  the  English,  that  the 
provisions  and  munition  first  arrive  at  Aquetneck,  called 
by  us  Rhode-Island,  at  the  Narraganset's  mouth,  and  then 
a  messenger  may  be  despatched  hither,  and  so  to  the  Bay, 
for  the  soldiers  to  march  up  by  land  to  the  vessels,  who 
otherwise  might  spend  long  time  about  the  Cape,  and  fill 
more  vessels  than  needs. 

"5.  That  the  assault  would  be  in  the  night,  when  they 
are  commonly  more  secure  and  at  home,  by  which  advan- 
tage the  English,  being  armed,  may  enter  the  houses  and 
do  what  execution  they  please. 

"  6.  That  before  the  assault  be  given,  an  ambush  be  laid 
behind  them,  between  them  and  the  swamp,  to  prevent 
their  flight,  &c. 

*' 7.  That  to  that  purpose,  such  guides  as  shall  be  best 
liked  of  be  taken  along  to  direct,  especially  two  Pequods, 
viz.  Wequash  and  Wuttackquiackommin,  valiant  men, 
especially  the  latter,  who  have  lived  these  three  or  four 
years  with  the  Narragansets,  and  know  every  pass  and  pas- 
sage among  them,  who  desire  armor  to  enter  their  houses. 

"  8.  That  it  would  be  pleasing  to  all  natives,  that  women 
and  children  be  spared,  &c. 

*'  9.  That  if  there  be  any  more  land  travel  to  Connecti- 
cut, some  course  would  also  be  taken  with  the  Wunna- 
showatuckoogs,  who  are  confederates  with  and  a  refuge  to 
the  Pequods. 

"  Sir,  if  any  thing  be  sent  to  the  princes,  I  find  that 
Canonicus  would  gladly  accept  of  a  box  of  eight  or  ten 
pounds  of  sugar,  and  indeed  he  told  me  he  would  thank 
Mr.  Governor  for  a  box  full. 

"  Sir,  you  may  please  to  take  notice  of  a  rude  view  how 
the  Pequods  lie : 

[Here  follows  a  rude  map  of  the  Pequod  and  Mohegan 
country.] 

"  Thus,  with  my  best  salutes  to  your  worthy  selves  and 
loving  friends  with  you,  and  daily   cries  to  the  Father  of 
mercies  for  a  merciful  issue  to  all  these  enterprises,  I  rest, 
^'  Your  worship's  unfeignedly  respective 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS, 


132  MEMOIR      OF 

"  For  his  much  honored  Mr.  Governor,  and  Mr.  Win- 
throp,  Deputy  Governor,  of  the  Massachusetts,  these." 

The  Pequods  now  prosecuted  the  war  with  all  the  cruelty 
of  savages.  They  murdered  several  individuals,  vvhom  they 
found  at  work  in  the  fields,  or  surprised  on  the  rivers ;  and 
some  of  them  they  put  to  death  with  barbarous  tortures. 
They  attacked  the  fort  at  Say  brook,  at  the  mouth  of  Con- 
necticut river.  They  thus  spread  alarm  through  the  colo- 
nies. Massachusetts,  Plymouth  and  Connecticut  immedi- 
ately agreed  to  invade  the  Indian  territory,  with  their  joint 
forces,  and  attempt  the  entire  destruction  of  the  Pequods. 
Massachusetts  accordingly  sent  120  men,  under  General 
Stoughton,  with  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Boston,  as  their  chaplain, 
an  indispensable  attendant  of  a  military  expedition  in  those 
days.  They  marched  by  the  way  of  Providence,  and  were 
hospitably  entertained,  at  that  place,  by  Mr.  Williams.  His 
own  account  of  the  transaction  may  be  properly  quoted : 
*'  When  the  English  forces  marched  up  to  the  Narraganset 
country,  against  the  Pequods,  I  gladly  entertained  at  my 
house,  in  Providence,  the  General  Stoughton  and  his 
officers,  and  used  my  utmost  care,  that  all  his  officers  and 
soldiers  should  be  well  accommodated  with  us."*  He  ac- 
companied the  troops  to  Narraganset,  where,  by  his  influ- 
ence, he  established  a  mutual  confidence  between  them 
and  the  Indians.  He  then  returned  to  Providence,  and 
acted  through  the  war  as  a  medium  of  intercourse  between 
the  government  of  Massachusetts,  the  army  and  the  In- 
dians. 

Major  Mason,  with  seventy-seven  men  from  Connecticut 
and  Massachusetts,  and  several  hundred  Narraganset  and 
other  Indians,!  attacked  the  Pequods,  in  May,  1637,  at  Mis- 
tick  fort,  near  a  river  of  that  name,  in  the  county  of  New- 
London,  a  few  miles  east  of  Fort  Griswold.  In  this  fort, 
five  or  six  hundred  Pequods,  men,  women  and  children, 
had  taken  refuge,  and  had  fortified  it,  as  well  as  their  skill 

*  Letter  to  Major  Mason. 

t  The  principal  force  from  Massachusetts,  under  General  Stough- 
ton, did  not  arrive  till  some  time  af.er  the  actlcjn.  The  Plymouth 
troops  did  not  march,  though  fifty  men  were  got  in  readiness,  but 
not  till  tlie  war  was  nearly  finished.  The  friendly  Indians  did  very 
little  service,  except  to  intercept  some  fugitives.  The  battle  was 
fought  by  the  whites. 


UOGER     WILLIAMS.  133 

Would  permit,  with  palisadoes,  which  offered  but  a  feeble 
defence,  and  presented  no  obstacle  to  musketry.  They 
made  a  desperate  resistance,  but  as  they  were  armed  only 
with  bows,  tomahawks  and  English  hatchets,  they  killed 
and  wounded  but  a  few  of  the  assailants,  while  the  English 
troops  poured  in  a  destructive  fire,  and  then  rushed  into 
the  fort,  sword  in  hand.  The  slaughter  was  dreadful,  the 
warriors  falling  by  the  bullet  and  the  sword,  and  the  old 
men,  women  and  children  perishing  in  the  flames.  The 
action  lasted  an  hour,  and  terminated  in  the  burning  of  the 
fort,  and  the  death  of  all  its  inmates,  except  a  few  pris- 
oners. 

A  considerable  number  of  the  Pequods  were  soon  after 
killed  in  a  battle  in  a  great  swamp.  The  tribe  was  extin- 
guished. Sassacus,  the  Pequod  sachem,  fled  to  the  Mo- 
hawks, by  whom  he  was  murdered.  Such  of  the  Pequods 
as  were  not  killed,  were  either  sent  to  Bermuda,  and  sold 
for  slaves,  or  mingled  with  the  Narragansets  and  other 
tribes.*  Thus  the  brave  and  powerful  Pequods  disappear- 
ed forever,  and  such  was  the  terror  which  this  victory 
spread  among  the  savages,  that  they  refrained  from  open 
hostilities  for  nearly  forty  years.  A  day  of  thanksgiving 
was  kept  by  all  the  churches  in  Massachusetts,  in  com- 
memoration of  the  victory,  from  which  their  soldiers  had 
returned,  without  the  loss  of  a  man  killed  in  battle.  The 
account  given  by  Winthrop  is  characteristic  of  those  times  : 
"  The  captains  and  soldiers  who  had  been  in  the  late  ser- 

* "  It  was  judged,"  says  Dr.  Holmes,  (Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  241)  ''that, 
during  the  summer,  seven  hundred  Pequods  were  destroyed,  among 
v/hom  were  thirteen  sachems.  About  two  hundred,  besides  women 
and  children,  survived  the  swamp  fight.  Of  this  number,  the  Eng- 
lish gave  eighty  to  Miantinomo,  and  twenty  to  Ninigret,  two  sa- 
chems of  Narraganset,  and  the  other  hundred  to  Uncas,  sachem  of 
the  Mohegans,  to  be  received  and  treated  as  their  men.  A  number 
of  the  male  children  were  sent  to  Bermuda.  However  just  the  oc- 
icasion  of  this  war,  humanity  demands  a  tear  on  the  extinction  of  a 
valiant  tribe,  which  preferred  death  to  what  it  might  naturally  an- 
ticipate from  the  progress  of  JEnglish  settlements — dependence,  or 
extirpation. 

'  Indulge,  my  native  land  !  indulge  the  tear, 

That  steals,  impassion'd,  o'er  a  nation's  doom: 
To  me  each  twig  from  Adam's  stock,  is  dear. 
And  sorrows  fall  upon  an  Indian's  tomb.'  " 

Dwight's  Greenfield  Hill. 


134  MEMOIR     OF 

vice  were  feasted,  and  after  the  sermon,  the  magistrates 
and  elders  accompanied  them  to  the  door  of  the  house 
where  they  dined."  Miantinomo,  the  Narraganset  sachem, 
visited  Boston,  in  November,  to  negotiate  with  the  govern- 
ment, and  acknowledged  that  all  the  Pequod  country  and 
Block-Island  belonged  to  Massachusetts,  and  promised  that 
he  would  not  meddle  with  it  without  their  leave. 

We  have  seen  the  part  which  Mr.  Williams  took  in  this 
war,  and  may  ascribe  to  him  no  small  share  in  producing 
its  favorable  termination.  Some  of  the  leading  men  in 
Massachusetts  felt,  that  he  deserved  some  acknowledgment 
of  gratitude  for  his  services.  He  says,  in  his  letter  to  Ma- 
jor Mason,  that  Governor  Winthrop  "  and  some  other  of 
the  council  motioned,  and  it  was  debated,  whether  or  no  I 
had  not  merited,  not  only  to  be  recalled  from  banishment, 
but  also  to  be  honored  with  some  mark  of  favor.  It  is 
known  who  hindered,  [alluding,  it  is  supposed,  to  Mr. 
Dudley]  who  never  promoted  the  liberty  of  other  men's 
consciences." 

His  principles,  however,  were  not  then  viewed  with  more 
favor  than  at  the  time  of  his  banishment ;  and  the  fear  of 
their  contagious  influence  overcame  the  sentiment  of  grati- 
tude for  his  magnanimous  conduct  and  invaluable  services 
during  the  war.  It  was  not  himself,  so  much  as  his  doc- 
trines, which  his  opponents  disliked.  To  those  doctrines 
they  were  conscientiously  hostile ;  and  they  were  not  the 
only  men  who  have  thought  that  they  did  God  service,  by 
stifling  the  generous  emotions  of  the  heart,  in  obedience  to 
the  stern  dictates  of  a  mistaken  sense  of  duty. 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Williams  may  be  properly 
quoted  here.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  on  the 
20th  of  August,  1637.  It  relates  to  the  affairs  of  the  In- 
dians, and  shows  that  the  division  of  the  Pequod  captives, 
and  other  causes,  occasioned  some  distrust  and  irritation 
between  the  English  and  the  Narragansets.  Mr.  Williams 
endeavored  to  preserve  peace  and  foster  friendship  among 
all  parties. 

''  New  Providence,  20tk  of  the  Qth, 
'*  Much  honored  Sir, 

''  Yours  by  Yotaash  (Miantinomo's  brother)  received.  I 
accompanied  him  to  the  Narragansets,  and  having  got  Ca- 
nonicus  and  Miantinomo,  with  their  council,  together,  I 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  135 

acquainted  them  faithfully  with  the  contents  of  your  letter, 
both  grievances  and  threatenings ;  and  to  demonstrate,  I 
produced  the  copy  of  the  league,  (which  Mr.  Vane  sent 
me)  and  with  breaking  of  a  straw  in  two  or  three  places,  I 
showed  them  what  they  had  done. 

"  In  sum  their  answer  was,  that  they  thought  they  should 
prove  themselves  honest  and  faithful,  when  Mr.  Governor 
understood  their  answers;  and  that  (although  they  would 
not  contend  with  their  friends,)  yet  they  could  relate  many 
particulars,  wherein  the  English  had  broken  (since  these 
wars)  their  promises,  (fcc. 

"  First,  then,  concerning  the  Pequod  squaws,  Canonicus 
answered,  that  he  never  saw  any,  but  heard  of  some  that 
came  into  these  parts,  and  he  bade  carry  them  back  to  Mr. 
Governor ;  but  since  he  never  heard  of  them  till  I  came, 
and  now  he  would  have  the  country  searched  for  them. 
Miantinomo  answered,  that  he  never  heard  of  but  six,  and 
four  he  saw  which  were  brought  to  him,  at  which  he  was 
angry,  and  asked  why  they  did  not  carry  them  to  me,  that 
I  might  convey  them  home  again.  Then  he  bid  the  na- 
tives that  brought  them  to  carry  them  to  me,  who,  depart- 
ing, brought  him  word  that  the  squaws  were  lame,  and 
they  could  not  travel.  Whereupon,  he  sent  me  word  that 
I  should  send  for  them.  This  I  must  acknowledge,  that 
this  message  I  received  from  him,  and  sent  him  word  that 
we  v/ere  but  few  here,  and  could  not  fetch  them  nor  con- 
vey them,  and  therefore  desired  him  to  send  men  with 
them,  and  to  seek  out  the  rest.  Then,  saith  he,  we  were 
busy  ten  or  twelve  days  together,  as  indeed  they  were,  in 
a  strange  kind  of  solemnity,  wherein  the  sachems  ate  nothing 
but  at  night,  and  all  the  natives  round  about  the  country 
were  feasted.  In  which  time,  saith  he,  I  wished  some  to 
look  to  them,  which,  notwithstanding,  at  this  time,  they 
escaped ;  and  now  he  would  employ  men  instantly  to  search 
all  places  for  them,  and  within  two  or  three  days  to  convey 
them  home.  Besides,  he  professed  that  he  desired  them 
not,  and  was  sorry  the  Governor  should  think  he  did.  I 
objected,  that  he  sent  to  beg  one.  He  answered,  that  Sas- 
samun,  being  sent  by  the  Governor  with  letters  to  Pequod, 
fell  lame,  and,  lying  at  his  house,  told  him  of  a  squaw  he 
saw,  which  was  a  sachem's  daughter,  who,  while  he  lived, 
was  his  (Miantinomo's)  great  friend.     He  therefore  de- 


136  MEMOIR     OF 

sired,  in  kindness  to  his  dead  friend,  to  beg  her,  or  redeem 
her. 

"  Concerning  his  departure  from  the  English,  and  leaving 
them  without  guides,  he  answered,  first,  that  they  had  been 
faithful,  many  hundreds  of  them,  (though  they  were  solic- 
ited to  the  contrary  :)  that  they  stuck  to  the  English  in  life 
or  death,  without  which  they  were  persuaded  that  Uncas 
and  the  Mohegans  had  proved  false,  (as  he  fears  they 
will  yet)  as  also  that  they  never  had  found  a  Pequod  ;  and 
therefore,  saith  he,  sure  there  was  some  cause.  I  desired 
to  know  it.  He  replied  in  these  words,  Chenock  eiuse 
wetompatimucks  ?  that  is,  did  ever  friends  deal  so  with 
friends?  I  urging  wherein,  he  told  me  this  tale  :  that  his 
brother,  Yotaash,  had  seized  upon  Puttaquppuunch,Quame, 
and  twenty  Pequods,  and  threescore  squaws ;  they  killed 
three  and  bound  the  rest,  watching  them  all  night,  and 
sending  for  the  English,  delivered  them  to  them  in  the 
morning.  Miantinomo  (who,  according  to  promise,  came 
by  land  with  two  hundred  men,  killing  ten  Pequods  in 
their  march,)  was  desirous  to  see  the  great  sachem  whom 
his  brother  had  taken,  being  now  in  the  English  houses; 
but,  saith  he,  I  was  thrust  at  with  a  pike  many  times,  that 
I  durst  not  come  near  the  door.  I  objected,  he  was  not 
known.  He  and  others  affirmed  he  was,  and  asked  if  they 
should  have  dealt  so  with  Mr.  Governor.  I  still  denied 
that  he  was  known,  &c.  Upon  this,  he  saith,  all  my  com- 
pany were  disheartened,  and  they  a^l,  and  Cutshamoquene, 
desired  to  be  gone ;  and  yet,  saith  he,  two  of  my  men 
(Wagonckwhut  and  Maunamoh)  were  their  guides  to  Se- 
squankit  from  the  river's  mouth. 

"  Sir,  I  dare  not  stir  coals,  but  I  saw  them  too  much 
disregarded  by  many,  which  their  ignorance  imputed  to 
all,  and  thence  came  the  misprision,  and  blessed  be  the 
Lord  things  were  no  worse. 

"  I  objected,  they  received  Pequods  and  wampum  with- 
out Mr.  Governor's  consent.  Canonicus  replied,  that 
although  he  and  Miantinomo  had  paid  many  hundred 
fathom  of  wampum  to  their  soldiers,  as  Mr.  Governor  did, 
yet  he  had  not  received  one  yard  of  beads  nor  a  Pequod. 
Nor,  saith  Miantinomo,  did  I,  but  one  small  present  from 
four  women  of  Long-Island,  which  were  no  Pequods,  but 
of  that  isle,  being  afraid,  desired  to  put  themselves  under 
my  protection. 


R  O  G  E  R     W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S  .  1 37 

"  By  the  next  I  shall  add  something  more  of  conse- 
quence, and  which  must  cause  our  loving  friends  of  Con- 
necticut to  be  very  watchful,  as  also,  if  you  please,  their 
grievances,  which  I  have  labored  already  to  answer,  to 
preserve  the  English  name ;  but  now  end  abruptly,  with 
best  salutes  and  earnest  prayers  for  your  peace  with  the 
God  of  peace  and  all  men.  So  praying,  I  rest, 
"  Your  worship's  unfeigned 

^'  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  All  loving  respects  to  Mrs.  Winthrop  and  yours,  as 
also  to  Mr.  Deputy,  Mr.  Bellingham,  theirs,  and  Mr.  Wil- 
son, &c. 

"  For  his  much  honored  Mr.  Governor,  these." 


138  ME3IOIR     OF 


CHAPTER  XI. 


Settlement  on  Rhode-Isiand  commenced — Mrs.  Hutchinson — settle- 
ment at  Pawtuxet. 

The  little  colony  at  Providence  was  rapidly  increased  by 
the  arrival  of  persons  from  the  other  colonies  and  from 
Europe,  attracted  thither  by  the  freedom  which  the  con- 
science there  enjoyed.  So  tenaciously  was  this  principle 
held,  that  the  town  disfranchised  one  of  its  citizens,  for 
refusing  to  allow  his  wife  to  attend  meeting  as  often  as  she 
wished.*     This  act  has  been  censured,  as  a  deviation  from 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  95.  "  None  might  have  a  voice  in  government 
in  this  new  plantation,  who  would  not  allow  this  liberty.  Ilence^ 
about  this  time,  I  found  the  following  town  act,  viz.  "  It  was  agreed^ 
that  Joshua  Verin,  upon  breach  of  covenant,  for  restraining  liberty 
of  conscience,  shall  be  withheld  from  liberty  of  voting,  till  he  shall 
declare  the  contrary."  Verin  left  the  town,  and  his  absence  seems 
to  have  been  considered  as  a  forfeiture  of  his  land,  for  in  1650,  he 
wrote  the  following  letter  to  the  town,  claiming  his  property.  The 
town  replied,  that  if  he  would  come  and  prove  his  title,  he  should 
receive  the  land.    . 

"^Gentlemen  and  countrymen  of  the  town  of  Providence  : 

"  This  is  to  certify  you,  that  I  look  upon  my  purchase  of  the  town 
of  Providence  to  be  my  lawful  right.  In  my  travel,  I  have  inquired, 
and  do  find  it  is  recoverable  according  to  law ;  for  my  coming  away 
covild  not  disinherit  me.  Some  of  you  cannot  but  recollect,  that  we 
six  which  came  first  should  have  the  first  convenience,  as  it  was  put  in 
practice  by  our  house  lots,  and  2d  by  the  meadow  in  Wanasquatucket 
river,  and  then  those  that  were  admitted  by  us  unto  the  purchase  to 
have  the  next  which  were  about ;  but  it  is  contrary  to  law,  reason  and 
equity,  for  to  dispose  of  my  part  without  my  consent.  Therefore 
deal  not  worse  with  me  than  we  dealt  with  the  Indians,  for  we  made 
conscience  of  purchasing  of  it  of  them,  and  hazarded  our  lives. 
Therefore  we  need  not,  nor  any  one  of  us  ought  to  be  denied  of  our 
purchase.  So  hoping  you  will  take  it  into  serious  consideration,  and 
to  give  me  reasonable  satisfaction,  I  rest, 

"  Yours  in  the  way  of  right  and  equity, 

"JOSHUA  VERIN. 

"  From  Salem,  the  21st  Nov.  1650. 

'•  This  be  delivered  to  the  deputies  of  the  town  of  Providence,  to  be 
presented  to  the  whole  town."' 

Winthrop's  account  of  this  affair  (vol.  i.  p.  282)  under  the  date  of 
December  13,  1038,  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which 
that  great  and  good  man  was  biassed  by  his  feelings,  when  he  spoke 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  139 

their  principles,  because  it  inflicted  a  civil  punishment  on 
a  man,  for  conduct  which  he  might  allege  to  have  sprung 
from  conscientious  scruples.  But  this  inconsistency,  if  it 
was  such,  was  an  error  on  the  right  side.  The  woman 
might  have  failed  in  duty  to  her  husband,  by  an  obstinate 
contempt  of  his  just  authority,  and  a  disregard  of  his  reason- 
able wishes.  But  the  inhabitants  of  Providence  were  right 
in  adhering  to  the  great  principle,  that  our  duties  to  God 
are  paramount  to  all  human  obligations;  and  that  the  right 
to  worship  him,  in  the  manner  which  we  deem  most  ac- 
ceptable to  him,  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  surrendered,  even 
by  the  marriage  covenant. 

A  settlement  was  made,  in  1637-8,  at  Portsmouth,  on  the 
north  side  of  the  island  which  gives  name  to  the  State. 
The  settlers  were,  like  Mr.  Williams  and  his  companions, 
exiles  or  emigrants  from  Massachusetts.  The  cause  of 
their  removal  may  be  traced  to  the  singular  ferment  which 
arose,  in  Massachusetts,  on  account  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson. 

of  Rhode-Island.  The  account  must  have  been  founded  on  reports, 
perhaps  on  mere  gossip :  -  , -^ 

'•  At  Providence,  also,  the  devil  was  not  idle.  For  whereas,  at 
their  first  coming  thither,  Mr.  Williams  and  the  rest, did  make  an 
order,  that  no  man  should  be  molested  for  his  conscience,  now  men's 
wives,  and  children,  and  servants,  claimed  liberty  hereby  to  go  to 
all  religious  meetings,  though  never  so  often,  or  though  private,  upon 
the  week  days ;  and  because  one  Verin  refused  to  let  his  wife  go  to 
Mr.  Williams  so  oft  as  she  was  called  for,  they  required  to  have  him 
censured.  But  there  stood  up  one  Arnold,  a  v/itty  man  of  their  own 
company,  and  withstood  it,  telling  them,  that  when  he  consented  to 
that  order,  he  never  intended  it  should  extend  to  the  breach  of  any 
ordinance  of  God,  such  as  the  subjection  of  wives  to  their  husbands, 
&€.  and  gave  divers  solid  reasons  against  it.  Then  one  Greene, 
(who  hath  married  the  wife  of  one  Beggerly,  whose  husband  is 
living,  and  no  divorce,  &.c.  but  only,  it  was  said,  that  he  had  lived 
in  adultery  and  had  confessed  it,)  he  replied,  that  if  they  should  re- 
strain their  wives,  &c.  all  the  women  in  the  country  would  cry  out 
of  them,  &c.  Arnold  answered  him  thus  :  Did  you  pretend  to  leave 
Massachusetts  because  you  would  not  offend  God  to  please  men, 
and  would  you  now  break  an  ordinance  and  commandment  of  God, 
to  please  women .''  Some  were  of  opinion,  that  if  Verin  would  not 
suffer  his  wife  to  have  her  liberty,  the  church  should  dispose  her  to 
some  other  man  who  would  use  her  better.  Arnold  told  them,  it  was 
not  the  woman's  desire,  to  go  so  oft  from  home,  but  only  Mr.  Wil- 
liams' and  others.  In  conclusion,  when  they  would  have  censured 
Verin,  Arnold  told  them,  that  it  was  against  their  own  order,  for 
Verin  did  that  he  did  out  of  conscience  ;  and  their  order  was,  that 
no  man  should  be  censured  for  his  conscience." 


140  MEMOIR     OP 

This  lady,  with  her  husband,  came  to  Boston,  from 
England,  in  1636.  She  possessed  talents,  which  she  ap- 
pears to  have  felt  no  reluctance  to  display.  She  was  treat- 
ed with  great  respect  by  Mr.  Cotton,  and  by  other  distin- 
guished individuals,  particularly  by  Governor  Vane.  It 
was  the  custom  of  the  members  of  the  church  to  meet  every 
week,  to  repeat  Mr.  Cotton's  sermons,  and  converse  on 
religious  doctrines.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  commenced  a  meet- 
ings of  the  females,  in  which  she  repeated  the  sermons,  with 
her  own  comments.  Her  eloquence  was  admired,  and  her 
meetings  were  thronged.  Her  vanity  was  inflamed,  and 
she  proceeded  to  announce  opinions  and  doctrines,  which 
soon  became  the  topic  of  conversation,  and  the  source  of 
vehement  contentions  throughout  the  colony.  Parties  were 
formed,  among  the  ministers  as  well  as  the  people  ;  Mr. 
Cotton  himself  being  inclined  to  the  side  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son, while  m.ost  of  the  ministers  and  magistrates  opposed 
her.  The  opinions  ascribed  to  her  related  to  such  points 
as  the  nature  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
person  of  the  believer,  and  the  connection  between  sancti- 
fication  and  justification.  From  these  opinions  others,  still 
more  heretical,  were  supposed  to  flow,  and,  as  usually 
happens,  the  inferences  which  men  chose  to  form  were 
considered  as  substantial  errors  actually  held  by  Mrs. 
Hutchinson.* 

The  alarm  spread  through  the  colony.  The  ministers 
thronged  to  Boston,  to  confer  with  Mr.  Cotton  and  others. 
Long  discussions  ensued,  without  effect,  and  at  length  it 
was  resolved  to  try  the  virtue  of  a  general  synod.  It  was 
accordingly  held  at  Newtown,  (now  Cambridge)  on  the 
30th  of  August,  1637,  and  was  attended  not  only  by  all  the 
ministers  and  messengers  of  the  churches,  but  by  the 
magistrates.  Three  weeks  were  spent  in  debates,  during 
which  the  mild  spirit  of  Winthrop  often  interposed  to  soften 

*  •'  Every  man  and  woman,  who  had  brains  enough  to  form  some 
imperfect  conception  of  them,  inferred  and  maintained  some  other 
point,  such  as  these  :  a  man  is  justified  before  he  beheves ;  faith  is 
no  cause  of  justification ;  and  if  faith  be  before  justification,  it  is 
only  passive  faith,  an  empty  vessel,  &c.  and  assurance  is  by  imme- 
diate revelation  only.  The  fear  of  God  and  love  of  our  neighbor 
seemed  to  be  laid  by,  and  out  of  the  question."  Hutchinson,  vol.  i. 
p.  59. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  l4l 

the  asperity  of  controversy.  The  synod  collected,  with 
great  industry,  all  the  erroneous  opinions  then  to  be  found 
in  the  country,  amounting  to  eighty-two,  and  finished  its 
session,  by  condemning  these  errors,  and  pronouncing  its 
judgment  on  certain  points  of  church  discipline.* 

The  eifect  of  the  synod  was  the  usual  one,  of  increasing 
the  pertinacity  with  which  the  different  parties  held  their 
opinions.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  continued  her  lectures,  and 
nearly  all  the  members  of  the  Boston  church  became  her 
converts.  She  forsook  the  public  assemblies,  and  set  up 
a  m.eeting  in  her  own  house.  She  accused  the  greater 
part  of  the  ministers  in  the  country  as  preachers  of  error. 
The  civil  power  now  interposed,  to  apply  the  remedy  for 
heresy,  which  has  often  been  used,  when  argument  had 
failed.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was  summoned  before  the  Gen- 
eral Court,  and  many  of  the  ministers.  She  was  tried, 
found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  banished.  The  church 
excommunicated  her,  though  she  is  said  to  have  recanted 
her  errors.  Rev.  Mr.  Wheelwright,  her  brother-in-law ,^ 
who  had  publicly  espoused  her  cause,  was  likewise  ban- 
ished. 

The  Court  proceeded  to  a  more  extraordinary  measure- 
Nearly  sixty  citizens  of  Boston,  and  a  number  in  other 
towns,  were  required  to  surrender  their  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion to  a  person  appointed  by  the  Court,  under  a  penalty  of 
ten  pounds ;  an.d  were  forbidden,  under  the  same  penalty, 
to  buy  or  borrow  any  arms  or  ammunition  until  further 
orders.  The  pretence,  as  set  forth  in  the  act,f  was  a  fear, 
that  the  principles  which  they  had  learned  of  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson and  Mr.  Wheelwright  might  impel  them  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  the  community,  as  certain  persons  in  Germany 
had  done.  Though  anabaptism  is  not  named,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive,  that  this  dreadful  phantom,  which  so  haunted 
the  imaginations  of  our  ancestors,  was,  on  this,  as  on  other 

*  One  of  these  decisions  of  the  synod  will  be  approved  by  the 
good  sense  of  Christians  in  this  age.  "  That  though  women  might 
meet  (some  few  together)  to  pray  and  edify  one  another,  yet  such  a 
set  assembly,  (as  was  then  in  practice  in  Boston)  where  sixty  or 
more  did  meet  every  week,  and  one  woman  (in  a  prophetical  way, 
by  resolving  questions  of  doctrine  and  expounding  Scripture)  took 
upon  her  the  whole  exercise,  v/as  agreed  to  be  disorderly,  and  with- 
out rule."     Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  240. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  86. 
13 


14^  MEMOIR     OP 

occasions,  made  the  apology  for  oppressive  measures.  That 
it  was  a  mere  pretext,  in  this  case,  we  have  the  best  reason 
to  believe,  for  Winthrop*  honestly  attributes  the  act  of 
disarming  these  men,  to  the  part  which  mo^t  of  them  had 
taken  in  a  remonstrance  to  the  General  Court  against  its 
measures  in  relation  to  Mr.  Wheelwright.  The  act  itself 
iprovcs  the  same  point,  for  it  provides,  that  if  any  of  them 
would  acknowledge  their  guilt  in  signing  the  "  seditious 
libel,"  they  should  be  exempted  from  its  operation.  The 
General  Court  was  as  jealous  of  its  prerogatives  as  King 
James  I. ;  and  to  prevent  these  individuals  from  expressing 
their  disapprobiition  by  acts  more  energetic  than  a  remon- 
strance, the  Court  thought  it  prudent  to  deprive  them  of 
offensive  weapons.  By  an  act,  passed  at  the  same  session, 
a  severe  punishment  was  decreed  for  those  persons  who 
should  speak  evil   of  the  judges  or  magistrates. 

These  transactions  have  been  recited,  not  only  from 
their  connection  with  the  settlement  of  Rhode-Island, 
but  because  they  furnish  ample  illustrations  of  the  multi- 
form mischiefs  which  ensue  from  an  interference  by  the 
civil  magistrate  in  the  affairs  of  the  church.  Had  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  been  permitted,  without  notice,  to  expound 
and  prophecy  as  she  pleased,  it  is  probable  that  her  zeal 
would  have  soon  spent  itself,  if  unsupplied  with  fuel  by 
her  vanity.  Or  if  she  had  been  left  to  the  salutary  dis- 
cipline of  the  church,  as  she  would  now  be,  no  serious 
effects  would  have  followed.  But  the  injudicious  excite- 
ment among  the  clergy,  and  still  more,  the  improper  con- 
duct of  the  magistrates,  gave  importance  to  the  affair,  and 
produced  a  convulsion  in  the  Commonwealth,  which  would 
have  ruined  a  community  less  intelligent  and  pious,  and 
the  perils  of  which  may  be  inferred  from  the  act  of  the 
General  Court,  disarming  a  portion  of  its  citizens.  The 
Court,  having  assumed  the  off.ce  of  inquisitors  into  the 
religious  opinions  of  men,  was  forced,  by  a  regard  to  con- 
sistency, to  prosecute  its  measures  to  the  end,  and  punish 
the  heretics  by  disfranchisement  and  expulsion  from  the 
Commonwealth.  Thus  were  the  affections  of  many  of  the 
inhabitants  alienated  from  each  other,  and  from  the  gov- 
ernment, and  the  colony  was  deprived  of  a  large  number  of 
its  citizens. 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  247. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  143 

But  God,  whose  high  prerogative  it  is  to  edace  good  from 
evil,  made  this  unhappy  feud  in  Massachusetts  the  occasion 
of  establishing  a  new  settlement  on  Rhode-Island.  Many 
of  the  individuals  who  had  been  disarmed,  and  others  who 
were  banished,  removed  from  Massachusetts.  Some  of 
them  went  to  Connecticut^  others  to  New-Hampshire,  and 
several  to  Providence.  But  a  number  of  persons,  among 
whom  was  John  Clarke,  a  learned  physician,  agreed  tei 
migrate  together,  and  requested  him  and  some  others  to 
select  a  suitable  place.  They  accordingly  proceeded  to 
New-Hampshire,  in  the  autumn  or  winter  of  1637,  the 
preceding  summer  having  been  so  warm  as  to  induce  them 
to  seek  a  more  northerly  position.  But  the  severity  of  the 
winter  in  New-Hampshire  tui-ned  their  thoughts  towards  a 
more  genial  clime.  Mr.  Clarke  and  his  associates  accord- 
ingly procee<ied  southward,  with  a  design  to  settle  on  Long- 
Island,  or  on  Delaware  Bay.  But  at  Providence,  they  were 
kindly  received  by  Mr.  Williams,  who  advised  them  to 
form  a  settlement  at  Sowam^  (now  called  Barrington,  a 
few  miles  from  Providence)  or  at  Aquetneck,*  (now  called 
Rhode-Island.)  But  as  they  had  resolved  to  remove  beyond 
the  limits  both  of  Plymouth  and  of  Massachusetts,  Mr. 
Williams,  Mr.  Clarke,  and  two  others  went  to  Plymouth,  to 
ascertain  w^hether  they  claimed  either  of  these  places. 
They  were  treated  with  respect  at  Plymouth,  and  were 
informed,  that  Sowams  was  claimed  by  that  colony,  but 
that  Aquetneck  was  out  of  their  jurisdiction. 

They  returned  to  Providence,  and  on  the  7th  of  March, 
1637-8,  the  following  instrument  was  drawn  up,  and  signed 
by  nineteen  individuals,  all  but  two  of  whom  were  named 
in  the  act  to  disarm  certain  citizens  of  Massachusetts : 

"  We,  whose  names  are  underwritten,  do  swear,  solemnly, 
in  the  p,resence  of  Jehovah,  to  incorporate  ourselves  into  a 
body  politic,  and  as  he  shall  help  us,  will  submit  our  per- 
sons, lives  and  estates  unto  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  King 
of  Kings,  and  Lord  of  Lords,  and  to  all  those  most  perfect 

*  This  word  is  spelled  by  different  writers,  in  various  ways.  The 
island  was  afterwards  (in  1044,  according  to  Callender,)  called  the 
Isle  of  Rhodes,  and  by  an  easy  declension,  Rhode-Island.  (Holmes, 
vol.  i.  p.  246.)  In  a  letter  of  Roger  Williams,  already  quoted,  written 
before  May,  1G37,  the  name  /tOfZe-Island  is  applied  to  it.  The  reason 
does  not  appear.  A  fancied  resemblance  to  the  Isle  of  Rhodes  is 
supposed  to  have  been  the  origin. 


144  ME  MO  IK     OF 

^nd  absolute  laws  of  his,  given  us  in  his  holy  word  of  truth, 
to  be  guided  and  judged  thereby. 

Thomas  Savage,  William  Coddington, 

William  Dyer,  John  Clarke, 

William  Freeborne,  William  Hutchinson, 

Philip  Sherman,  John  Coggeshall, 

John  Walker,  William  Aspinavall, 

Richard  Carder,  Samuel  Wilbore, 

William  Baulstone,  John  Porter, 

l^DWARD  Hutchinson,  Sen.  Edward  Hutchinson,  Jr, 
Henry  Bull,  John   Sanford." 

Randall  Holden, 

By  the  friendly  assistance  of  Mr.  Williams,  Aquetneck 
and  other  islands  in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  were  purchased 
of  the  sachems,  Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  on  considera- 
tion of  forty  fathoms  of  white  beads.  The  deed  of  cession 
was  signed  by  the  sachems,  March  24,  1637-8.* 

*  This  deed  is  as  follows :  (Backus,  vol.  i.  pp.  180-1.) 
''  The  24th  of  the  first  month,  called  March,  in  the  year  (so  com- 
monly called)  1637-8,  Memorandum,  that  we,  Canonicus  and  Mian- 
tinomo, the  two  chief  sachems  of  the  Narraganset,  by  virtue  of  cur 
general  command  of  this  bay,  as  also  the  particular  subjecting  of  the 
dead  sachems  of  Aquetneck  and  Kitackamuckqut,  themselves  and 
lands  unto  us,  have  sold  to  Mr.  Coddington  and  his  friends  united 
unto  him,  the  great  island  of  Aquetneck,  lying  hence  eastward  in 
this  bay,  as  also  the  marsh  or  grass  upon  Canonicut,  and  the  rest  of 
the  islands  in  this  bay  (excepting  Chibachuwesa  [Prudence]  formerly 
sold  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  the  nov/  Governor  of  the  Massachusetts,  and 
Mr.  Williams,  of  Providence)  also  the  grass  upon  the  rivers  and 
bounds  about  Kitackamackqut,  and  from  thence  to  Paupusquatch,  for 
the  full  payment  of  forty  fathoms  of  white  beads,  to  be  equally  divi- 
ded between  us  ;  in  v/itness  whereof,  we  have  here  subscribed.  Item, 
that  by  giving,  by  Miantinomo's  hands,  ten  coats  and  twenty  hoes  to 
the  present  inhabitants,  they  shall  remove  themselves  from,  off  the 
island  before  next  winter. 

"  Witness  our  hands, 
"  The  m.ark  (t)  of  CANONICUS. 
"  The  mark  (|)  of  MIANTINOMO. 
"  In  presence  of 
"The  mark  (X)  of  Yotaash, 

"  Roger  Williams, 
"Randall  Holden, 
"  Tlie  mark  (t)  ol  Assotemuit, 
"  The  mark  (j|)  of  Mihammoh,  Canonicus  his  son. 

'•  Memorandum,  that  Ousamequin  freely  consents,  that  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Coddington  and  his  friends  united  unto  him,  shall  make  use  of 
any  grass  or  trees  on  the  main  land  on  Pawakasick  side,  and  all  my 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  T45 

Tlie  natives  who  resided  at  Aquetneck  soon  after  agreed, 
on  receiving  ten  coats  and  twenty  hoes,  to  remove  before 
the  next  winter.* 

On  the  beautiful  island,  the  adventurers  commenced 
their  settlement,  under  the  simple  compact  which  we  have 
quoted.  The  northern  part  of  the  island  ivas  first  occu- 
pied, and  called  Portsmouth.  The  number  of  the  colonists 
being  increased  during  the  summer,  a  portion  of  the  in- 
habitants removed  the  next  spring,  to  the  southwestern  part 
af  the  island,  where  they  commenced  the  town  of  New- 
port. Both  towns,  however,  were  considered  as  belonging 
to  the  same  colony.  In  imitation  of  the  form  of  government 
which  existed  for  a  time  among  the  Jews^  the  inhabitants 
chose  Mr.  Coddington  to  be  their  magistrate,  with  the  title 
of  Judge ;  and  a  few  months  afterwards,  they  elected  three 
elders,t  to  assist  him.  This  form  of  government  continued 
till  March  12,  1640,  when  they  chose  Mr.  Coddington, 
Governor ;  Mr.  Brenton,  Deputy  Governor  ;  and  Messrs. 
Easton,,  Coggeshall,..  William  Hutchinson,  and  John  Porter^ 
assistants  ;  Robert  Jefferies,  Treasurer,  and  William  Dyer, 
Secretary.  This  form  of  government  continued,  till  the 
ckarter  was  obtained.  The  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  the 
pleasantness  of  the  climate,  soon  attracted  many  people  ta 
the  settlement,  and  the  island  in  a  few  years  became  so- 
populous,  as  to  send  out  colonists  to  the  adjacent  shores. | 

To   this  settlement,  Mr.    Hutchinson,  with    his  family,. 

men,  to  the  said  Mr.  Coddington,  and  English,  his  friends  united  to 
him,  having  received  of  Mr.  Coddington  five  fathoms  of  vi^ampmn, 
as  gratuity  for  himself  and  the  rest. 

'^  The  mark  (X)  of  OUSAMEQUIN. 
-  Witness,  ^^'^^^^^  Williams, 

'   (  liANDALL    HOLDEN. 

"  Dated  the  6th  of  the  fifth  month,  1638.  ' 

*  Mr.  Callender  says,  (His.  Dis.  p.  32,)  "  The  English  inhabited" 
between  two  powerful  nations,  the  Wampanoags  to  the  north  and 
east,  v.'ho  had  formerly  possessed  some  part  of  their  grants,  before 
they  had  surrendered  it  to  the  Narragansets  ,  and  though  they  freely 
owned  the  submis.sion,  yet  it  was  thought  best  by  Mr.  Williams  to 
make  them  easy  by  gratuities  to  the  sacliem,  his  counsellors  and  fol- 
lowers. On  the  other  side ,  the  Narragansets  were  very  numerous, 
and  tlie  natives  inhabiting  any  spot  the  Er glish  sat  down  upon,  or 
improved,  were  all  to  be  bought  off  to  their  content,  and  oftentimes 
were  to  be  paid  over  and  over  again."' 

t  Messrs.  Nicholas  Easton,  John  Coggeshall  aitd  William  Brenton- 

t  Holmes,,  vol.  i.  p.  24G. 

13* 


146  M  EBIOTR    OF 

removed  from  Massachusetts.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  occasioned  any  disturbance  at  Rhode- 
Island.  Her  husband  was  elected  one  of  the  assistants,  in 
1640.  He  died  in  1642,  and  his  wife,  for  some  reason  not 
satisfactorily  explained,  removed  to  the  neighborhood  of 
New- York,  where  she  was  killed  by  the  Indians,  the  next  year, 
with  all  the  members  of  her  family,  amounting  to  sixteen 
persons,  except  one  -daughter,  who  was  carried  into  captivity. 

It  is  proper  to  mention  in  this  place,  with  special  honor 
•the  important  aid  of  Mr.  Williams  in  founding  this  settle- 
ment. With  that  prompt  humanity,  which  always  distin- 
guished him,  he  used  all  his  influence  on  behalf  of  this 
band  of  exiles  ;  and  it  was,  without  question,  his  intimacy 
and  favor  with  the  sachems  which  procured  the  cession  of 
Aquetneck.  He  himself  asserted  this  fact,  in.  a  letter 
written  in  165S  : 

"  I  have  acknowledged  (and  have  and  shall  endeavor  to 
maintain)  the  rights  and  properties  of  every  inhabitant  of 
Rhode-Island  in  peace  ;  yet  since  there  is  so  much  sound 
and  noise  of  purchase  and  purchasers,  I  judge  it  not 
unseasonable  to  declare  the  rise  and  bottom  of  the  planting 
-of  Rhode-Island  in  the  fountain  of  it.  It  was  not  price 
nor  money  that  could  have  purchased  Rhode-Island. 
Rhode-Island  was  obtained  by  love  ^  by  the  love  and  favor 
which  that  honorable  gentleman,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  and 
myself,  had  with  that  great  sachem  Miantinomo,  about  the 
league  which  I  procured  between  the  Massachusetts  En- 
glish, &LC.  and  the  Narragansets,  in  the  Pequod  war.  It  is 
true,  I  advised  a  gratuity  to  be  presented  to  the  sachem 
and  the  natives ;  and  because  Mr.  Coddington  and  the  rest 
of  my  loving  countrymen  were  to  inhabit  the  place,  and  to 
be  at  the  charge  of  the  gratuities,  I  drew  up  a  writing  in 
Mr.  Coddington's  name,  and  in  the  names  of  such  of  my 
loving  countrymen  as  came  up  with  him,  and  put  it  into  as 
sure  a  form  as  I  could  at  that  time  (amongst  the  Indians) 
for  the  benefit  and  assurance  of  the  present  and  future 
inhabitants  of  the  island.  This  I  mention,  that  as  that 
truly  noble  Sir  Henry  Vane  hath  been  so  great  an  instru- 
ment in  the  hand  of  God  for  procuring  of  this  island  from 
the  barbarians,  as  also  for  procuring  and  confirming  of  the 
charter,  so  it  may  by  all  due  thankful  acknowledgment  be 
remembered  and  recorded  of  us  and  ours,  which  reap  and 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  147 

enjoy  the  sweet  fruits  of  so  great  benefits,  and  such  unheard 
of  liberties  amongst  us."     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  91. 

"  In  another  manuscript,  (says  Mr.  Benedict,  vol.  i.  p. 
459)  he  tells  us,  "  The  Indians  were  very  shy  and  jealous 
of  selling  the  lands  to  any,  and  chose  rather  to  make  a 
grant  of  them  to  such  as  they  affected  ;  but  at  the  same 
time,  expected  such  gratuities  and  rewards  as  made  an 
Indian  gift  oftentimes  a  very  dear  bargain."  "  And  the 
colony  in  1666,"  says  Mr.  Callender,  "  averred,  that  though 
the  favor  Mr.  Williams  had  with  Miantinomo  was  the  great 
means  of  procuring  the  grants  of  the  land,  yet  the  purchase 
had  been  dearer  than  of  any  lands  in  New-England." 

Mr.  Williams'  conduct  on  this  occasion  was  worthy  of 
his  character,  and  entitled  him  to  more  gratitude  than  he 
seems  to  have  received  from  some  of  the  objects  of  his 
good  offices. 

About  this  time,  a  number  of  the  inhabitants  of  Provi- 
dence, among  whom  was  Mr.  Benedict  Arnold,  removed  to 
Pawtuxet,  a  place  four  miles  south  of  Providence,  and 
included  within  the  territory  ceded  to  Mr.  Williams. 
These  individuals  were  doubtless  induced  to  fix  their  resi- 
dence there,  by  the  luxuriant  meadows  on  the  banks  of  the 
river,  which  furnished  pasture  for  their  cattle. 


i 


34S  IJIEMOIR     \)T 


CJHAPTER  XII. 


'Condition  of  Providence — execntion  of  throe  murderers  of  an  In- 
dian— birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  eldest  «on. 

We  have  seen  Mr.  Williams,  though  burdened  by  the 
toils  and  privations  ef  a  new  settlement,  generously  de- 
voting his  time  and  property  to  rescue  his  countrymen  from 
destruction  by  the  Pequods  ;  and  assisting  to  establish  a 
new  colony  at  Rhode-Island.  His  own  settlement  at 
Providence  was,  in  the  mean  while,  increasing.  The 
measures  adopted  in  Massachusetts,  in  relation  to  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  and  her  adherents,  made  Providence  a  wel- 
come place  of  refuge  to  some  of  the  fugitives.  The  temper 
of  Massachusetts  towards  the  settlement  is  shown  in  an  act 
of  the  General  Court,  March  12,  1637-8,  virtually  prohibit- 
ing any  of  the  inhabitants  of  Providence  from  coming  into 
Massachusetts.* 

This  act  operated  with  much  severity,  for  the  colonists 
were  dependent  on  Boston  for  supplies  from  abroad.  Mr, 
Williams  complained,  that  he  had  suffered  the  loss  of  many 
thousand  pounds,  in  his  "  trading  with  English  and  na- 
tives, being  debarred  from  Boston,  the  chief  mart  and  port 
of  New-England. "t     The  writer  of  the  History  of  Provi- 

*  *'  While  the  General  Court  sat,  there  came  a  letter  directed  to 
the  Court  from  John  Greene,  of  Providence,  v»'ho,  not  long  before, 
had  been  imprisoned  and  fined  for  saying,  that  the  magistrates  had 
usurped  upon  the  po,wcr  of  Christ  in  his  church,  and  had  pcrseouted 
JVIr.  Williams  and  another,  wliom  they  had  banished  for  disturbing 
the  peace,  by  divulging  their  opinions  against  the  authority  of  tlie 
magistrates,  &c.  ;  but  upon  his  submission,  &-c.  his  fine  was  re- 
mitted ;  and  now,  by  his  letter,  he  retracted  his  former  submission, 
and  charged  the  Court  as  he  liad  done  before.  Now,  because  the 
Court  knew,  that  divers  others  of  Providence  were  of  the  same  ill- 
affection  to  the  Court,  and  were,  probably,  suspected  to  be  confede- 
rate in  the  same  letter,  the  Court  ordered,  thot  if  any  of  that  planta- 
tion were  found  within  our  jurisdiction,  he  should  lie  brought  before 
one  of  the  magistrates,  and  if  he  would  not  disclaim  the  charge  in  the 
.said  letter,  he  should.be  sent  home,  and  charged  to  come  no  .n>ore 
into  this  jurisdiction,  upon  pain  of  imprisonment  and  further  -cen- 
:sure."     Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  25G. 

■t  Letter  to  Major  Mason. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  149 

dence  attributes  the  want  of  written  memorials  of  the  first 
settlers  to  the  scarcity  of  paper,  observing,  that  "  the 
first  of  their  writings  that  are  to  be  found,  appear  on  small 
scraps  of  paper,  wrote  as  thick,  and  crowded  as  full  as 
possible."  This  scarcity  of  an  article,  which  could  be 
procured  from  Europe  only,  would  be  a  natural  conse- 
quence of  an  exclusion  from  the  only  port  nearer  than 
New- York,  which  vessels  from  abroad  then  visited.  But 
articles  of  still  greater  necessity  could  not  be  obtained  in 
the  colonies,  and  the  inconvenience,  if  not  suffering,  occa- 
sioned by  such  an  exclusion,  can  scarcely  be  imagined  in 
the  present  age. 

But  no  injuries  to  himself  or  his  fellow  colonists  could 
provoke  Mr.  Williams  to  refuse  his  good  offices  with  the 
Indians.  About  June,  1638,  the  following  letter  was  writ- 
ten by  him  to  Governor  Winthrop  :* 

''  Sir, 

"  I  perceive,  by  these  your  last  thoughts,  that  you  have 
received  many  accusations  and  hard  conceits  of  this  poor 
native  Miantinomo,  wherein  I  see  the  vain  and  empty  puff 
of  all  terrene  promotions,  his  barbarous  birth  or  greatness 
being  much  honored,  confirmed  and  augmented  (in  his 
own  conceit)  by  the  solemnity  of  his  league  with  the  Eng- 
lish, and  his  more  than  ordinary  entertainment,  &/C.  now 
all  dashed  in  a  moment  in  the  frowns  of  such  in  whose 
friendship  and  love  lay  his  chief  advancement. 

"  Sir,  of  the  particulars,  some  concerning  him  only, 
some  Canonicus  and  the  rest  of  the  sachems,  some  all  the 
natives,  some  myself. 

"  For  the  sachems,  I  shall  go  over  speedily,  and  acquaint 
them  with  particulars.  At  present,  let  me  still  find  this 
favor  in  your  eyes,  as  to  obtain  an  hearing,  for  that  your 
love  hath  never  denied  me,  which  way  soever  your  judg- 
ment hath  been  (I  hope,  and  I  know  you  will  one  day  see 
it,)  and  been  carried. 

''  Sir,  let  this  barbarian  be  proud,  and  angry,  and  coTet- 
ous,  and  filthy,  hating  and  hateful,  (as  ourselves  have  been 
till  kindness  from  heaven  pitied  us,  &c.)  yet  let  me  hum- 
bly beg  belief,  that  for  myself,  I  am  not  yet  turned  Indian, 

^  3  His.  Col.  i.  p.  166. 


150  IVTEMOIR     OF 

to  believe  all  barbarians  tell  me,  nor  so  basely  prestmiptu- 
ous  as  to  trouble  the  eyes  and  hands  of  such  (and  so 
iionored  and  dear)  with  shadows  and  fables.  I  commonly 
guess  shrewdly  at  what  a  native  utters,  and,  to  my  remem- 
brance, never  wrote  particular,  but  either  I  kno^'  the  bot- 
tom of  it,  or  else  I  am  bold  to  give  a  hint  of  my  suspense. 

*'  Sir,  therefore,  in  some  things  at  present,  (begging  your 
wonted  gentleness  toward  my  folly)  give  me  leave  te  show 
you  how  I  clear  myself  from  such  a  lightness. 

"  I  wrote  lately  (for  that  you  please  to  begin  with)  that 
some  Pequods  (and  some  of  them  actual  murderers  of  the 
English,  and  that  also  after  the  fort  was  cut  off,)  were  now 
in  your  hands.  Not  only  love,  but  oeiiscience  forced  me 
to  send,  and  speedily,  on  purpose,  by  a  native,  mine  own 
servant.  I  saw  not,  and  spake  not  with  Miantinomo,  nor 
any  from  him.  I  write  before  the  All -Seeing  Eye,  But 
thus  it  was.  A  Narraganset  man  (Awetipimo)  coming 
from  the  Bay  with  cloth,  turned  in  (as  they  use  to  do)  to 
me  for  lodging.  I  questioned  of  Indian  passages,  &.c. 
He  tells  me  Uncas  was  come  with  near  upon  forty  natives. 
I  asked  what  present  he  brought  He  told  me  that  Cuts- 
hamoquene  had  four  fathom  and  odd  of  him,  and  forty  was 
for  Mr.  <jovernor.  I  asked  him  how  many  Pequods.  He 
.told  me  six.  I  asked  him  if  they  were  known.  He  said 
Uncas  denied  that  there  were  any  Pequods,  and  said  they 
were  Mohegans  all.  I  asked  if  himself  knew  any  of  them. 
He  answered  he  did,  and  so  did  other  Indians  of  Narra- 
ganset. I  asked  if  the  murderer  of  whom  I  wrote,  Pama- 
4;esiek,  were  there.  He  answered  he  was,  and  (I  further 
inquiring)  he  was  confident  it  was  he,  foj  he  knew  him  as 
well  as  me,  &:.c. 

"  All  this  nevvs  (by  this  providence)  I  knew  before  ever  it 
came  to  Narraganset.  Upon  this  I  sent,  indeed  fearing 
guilt  to  my  own  soul,  both  against  the  Lord  and  my  coun- 
trymen. But  see  a  stranger  hand  of  the  Most  and  Oidy 
Wise.  Two  days  after,  Uncas  passeth  by  within  a  mile  of 
me  (though  he  should  have  been  kindly  welcome.)  One 
of  his  company  (Wequaumugs)  having  hurt  his  foot,  and 
.disabled  from  travel,  turns  in  to  me ;  whom  lodging,  I 
^question,  and  find  him  by  father  a  Narraganset^  by  mother 
a  MohegaUj  and  so  freely  entertained  by  botji.  I  further 
inquiring,  be  told  me  .he  went  from  Mohegan  to  tke  Bay 


ROGER     WILLIAMS-  l^Tl 

With  Uncas'.  He  told  me  how  he  had  prc^scntcd  forty 
fathom  (to  tny  fcmcmbraiice)  to  Mr.  GoveSrnor  (four  and 
upwards  to  Cutshamoqueiie^)  who  would  not  receive  them,, 
but  asked  twice  for  Pequods.  At  last,  at  Newton,  Mr. 
Governor  received  them,  and  was  willing  that  the  Pequods 
shoiild  live,  such  as  were  at  Mohegan,  subject  to  the  En- 
gjislif  sachems  at  Connecticut,  to  whom  they  should  carry 
tribute,  and  such  Pequods  as  were  at  Narraganset  to  Mr 
Governor,  and  all  the  runaways  at  Mohegan  to  be  sent 
back.  I  asked  him  how  m^ny  Pequods  were  at  Narra- 
ganset. He  said  but  two,  who  were  Miantinomo's  captives^ 
and  that  at  Niantick  with  Wequash  Cook  were  about  thr^e 
score.  I  asked,  why  he  said  the  Indians  at  Narraganset 
w^ere  to  be  the  Governor's  subjects.  He  said,  because 
Niantick  was  sometimes  so  called,  although  there  ha4;h  been 
of  late  no  coming  of  Narraganset  men  thither.  I  asked 
him  if  he  heard  all  this.  He  said  that  himself  and  the' 
body  of  the  company  stayed  about  Cutshamoquene's.  I 
asked  how  many  Pequods  were  among  them.  He  said  six. 
I  desired  him  to  name  them,,  which  he  did  thus :  Pame- 
tesick,  Weeaugonhick,  (another  of  those  murderer-s) 
Makunnete,  Kishkontuckqu?j,  Sausawpona,  Qussaumpow- 
an,  which  names  I  presently  wrote  down,  and  (pace  vestra 
dixerim)  I  am  as  confident  of  the  truth  as  that  I  breathe. 
Again,  (not  to  be  too  bold  in  all  the  particulars  at  this 
time)  what  a  gross  and  monstrous  untruth  is  that  concern- 
ing  myself,,  which  your  love  and  wisdom  to  myself  a  little 
espy,  and  I  hope  see  malice  and  falsehood,  (far  from  the 
fear  of  God)  whispering  together  ?  I  have  long  held^  it 
will- worship  to  doff  and  don  to  the  Most  High  in  worship  ;: 
and  I  wish  also,  that  in  civil  worship,  others  were  as  far 
from  such  a  vanity,  though  I  hold  it  not  utterly  unlawful 
in  some  places.  Yet  surely,  amongst  the  barbarians  (the 
highest  irr  the  world,)  I  would  rather  lose  my  head  than  eo 
practise,  because  I  judge  it  my  duty  to  set  them  better 
copies,  and  should  sin  against  my  own  persuasions  and 
resolutions. 

"  Sir,  concerning  the  islands  Prudence  and  (Patmos,  if 
some  had  not  hindered)  Aquetneck,  be  pleased  to  under- 
stand your  great  mistake  :  neither  of  them  were  sold  pro- 
perly, for  a  thousand  fathom  would  not  have  bought  either, 
by  strangers.     The  truth  is,  not  a  penny  was  demanded 


15'2  MEMOIR     OF 

for  either,  and  what  was  paid  was  only  gratuity,  though  I 
chose,  for  better  assurance  and  form,  to  call  it  sale. 

"  And,  alas  !  (though  I  cannot  conceive  you  can  aim  at 
the  sachems)  they  have  ever  conceived  that  myself  and  Mr. 
Coddington  (whom  they  knew  so  many  years  a  sachem  at 
Boston)  were  far  from  being  rejected  by  yourselves,  as  you 
please  to  write,  for  if  the  Lord  had  not  hid  it  from  their 
eyes,  I  am  sure  you  had  not  been  thus  troubled  by  myself 
at  present.  Yet  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness 
thereof  His  infinite  wisdom  and  pity  be  pleased  to  help 
you  all,  and  all  that  desire  to  fear  his  name  and  tremble  at 
his  word  in  this  country,  to  remember  that  we  are  all 
rejected  of  our  native  soil,  and  more  to  mind  the  many 
strong  bands,  with  which  we  are  all  tied,  than  any  particu- 
lar distastes  each  against  the  other,  and  to  remember  that 
excellent  precept,  Prov.  25,  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed 
him,  &/C.  for  thou  shalt  heap  coals  of  fire  upon  his  head, 
and  Jehovah  shall  rev.ard  thee ;  unto  whose  mercy  and 
tender  compassions  I  daily  commend  you,  desirous  to  be 
more  and  ever, 

"  Your  worship's  unfeigned  and  faithful, 

''ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  Sir,  mine  own  and  wife's  respective  salutes  to  your  dear 
companion  and  all  yours ;  as  also  to  Mr.  Deputy,  Mr. 
Bellingham,  and  other  loving  friends. 

"I  am  bold  to  enclose  this  paper,  although  the  passages 
may  not  be  new,  yet  they  may  refresh  your  memories  in 
these  English  Scotch  distractions,  &c. 

"  For  his  much  honored  and  beloved  Mr.  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  these," 

In  August,  1638,  his  aid  was  again  solicited  by  Massa- 
chusetts. Winthrop  says,  under  that  date,  "  Janemoh,  the 
sachem  of  Niantick,  had  gone  to  Long-Island,  and  rifled 
some  of  those  Indians  which  were  tributaries  to  us.  The 
sachems  complained  to  our  friends  of  Connecticut,  who 
wrote  us  about  it,  and  sent  Captain  Mason,  with  seven  men, 
to  require  satisfaction.  The  Governor  of  the  Massachu- 
setts wrote  also  to  Mr.  Williams,  to  treat  with  Miantinomo 
about  satisfaction,  or  otherwise  to  bid  them  look  for  war. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  153 

Upon  this  Janemoh  went  to  Connecticut,  and  made  lijs 
peace,  and  gave  full  satisfaction  for  all  injuries."* 

About  this  time,  an  event  occurred,  which  deserves  to  be 
related,  both  on  account  of  Mr.  Williams'  connection  with 
it,  and  because  it  is  in  a  high  degree  honorable  to  the 
justice  and  integrity  of  the  colonists,  in  their  transactions 
with  the  natives. 

Four  young  men,  of  Plymouth,  who  were  servants, 
having  absconded  from  their  masters,  attacked  an  Indian, 
at  Pawtucket,  near  Providence,  but  within  the  limits  of 
Plymouth  colony.  After  inflicting  upon  him  a  mortal 
wound,  they  robbed  him  of  a  quantity  of  wampum,  and 
fled  to  Providence.  Here  they  were  received  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, with  his  usual  hospitality,  he  being  then  ignorant  of 
their  character  and  their  crime,  and  supposing  that  they 
were,  as  they  pretended,  travellers  to  Connecticut.  He 
furnished  them  with  letters  and  a  guide  ;  but  after  their 
departure,  he  w^as  informed  of  the  atrocious  act  which  they 
had  perpetrated.  He  immediately  despatched  messengers 
to  apprehend  them,  and  went  himself,  with  two  or  three 
others,  in  search  of  the  wounded  Indian.  They  carried 
him  to  Providence,  and  endeavored  to  preserve  his  life ; 
but  in  vain.  The  murderers  fled  to  Newport,  where,  in 
consequence  of  information  from  Mr.  Vv^illiams,  they  were 
arrested.  Mr.  Coddington  being  absent,  they  were  sent  to 
Providence.  Mr.  Williams  was  at  a  loss  to  determine, 
whether  they  ought  to  be  tried  at  Newport,  where  they 
were  taken,  or  at  Plymouth,  to  which  they  belonged.  He 
accordingly  wrote  to  Governor  Winthrop,  to  ask  his  advice. 
The  following  letter,  written  about  August,  1688,  contains, 
among  other  things,  an  account  of  these  transactions  -.t 

"  Much  honored  Sir, 
"  The  bearer  lodging  with  me,  I  am  bold  to  write  an 
hasty  advertisement  concerning  late  passages.  For  himself, 
it  seems  he  was  fearful  to  go  farther  than  forty  m.iles  about 
us,  especially  considering  that  no  natives  are  willing  to 
accompany  him  to  Pequod  or  Mohegan,  being  told  by  two 

"  Winthrop.  vol.  i.  p.  267.  In  the  Journal,  there  are  repeated 
allusions  to  information  received  from  Mr.  Williams,  respecting  the 
Indians,  and  services  rendered  by  him.     See  vol.  i  pp.  225,  226.  &c. 

t  3  His.  Col.  i.  p.  170-3. 

14 


1^4 


Ri  E  M  O  I  R     Of 


Peqiiods  (the"  all  of  Miantinomo's  captives  wliicli  are  not  rufi 
from  him)  what  he  might  expect,  &c. 

"■  Sir,  Capt.  Mason  and  Thomas  Stanton,  landing  at 
Narraganset,  and  at  Miantinomo's  denouncing  war  within 
six  days  against  Janemoh,  for  they  say  that  Miantinomo  hath 
been  fair  in  all  the  passages  with  them,  Janemoh  sent  two 
messengers  to  myself,  requesting  counsel.  I  advised  him  to 
cro  over  with  beads  and  satisfy,  &/C. 

"  He  sent  four  Indians.  By  them  Mr.  Haynes  writes  me, 
that  they  confess  fifteen  fathom  there  received  at  Long* 
Island.  Thereabout  they  confessed  to  me  (four  being  taken 
of  Pequods  by  force,  and  restored  again,)  as  also  that  the 
islanders  say  fifty-one  fathom,  which  sum  he  demanded,  as 
also  that  the  Niantick  messengers  laid  down  twenty-six 
fathom  and  a  half,  which  was  received  in  part,  with  declara- 
tion that  Janemoh  should  within  ten  days  bring  the  rest 
himself,  or  else  they  were  resolved  for  war,  &c.  I  have 
therefore  sent  once  and  again  to  Janemoh,  to  persuade  him- 
self to  venture,  &c.  Canonicus  sent  a  principal  man  last 
night  to  me,  in  haste  and  secrecy,  relating  that  Wequash 
had  sent  word  that  if  Janemoh  went  over  he  should  be  killed, 
but  I  assure  them  the  contrary,  and  persuade  Canonicus  to 
importune  and  hasten  Janemoh  within  his  time,  ten  days, 
withal  hoping  and  writing  back  persuasions  of  better  things 
to  Mr.  Haynes,  proffering  myself,  (in  case  that  Janemoh 
through  fear  or  folly  fail)  to  take  a  journey  and  negotiate 
their  business,  and  save  blood,  whether  the  natives'  or  my 
countrymen's. 

"  Sir,  there  hath  been  great  hubbub  in  all  these  parts, 
as  a  general  persuasion  that  the  tim.e  was  come  of  a 
general  slaughter  of  natives,  by  reason  of  a  murder  com- 
mitted upon  a  native  within  twelve  miles  of  us,  four  days 
since,  by  four  desperate  English.  I  presume  particulars 
have  scarce  as  yet  been  presented  to  your  hand.  The  last 
5th  day,  toward  evening,  a  native,  passing  through  us, 
brought  me  word,  that  at  Pawtucket,  a  river  four  miles  from 
us  toward  the  Bay,  four  Englishmen  were  almost  famished. 
I  sent  instantly  provisions,  and  strong  water,  with  invita- 
tion, &/C.  The  messengers  brought  word,  that  they  were 
one  Arthur  Peach,  of  Plymouth,  an  Irishman,  John  Barnes, 
his  man,  and  two  others  come  from  Pascataquack,  travel- 
ling to  Connecticut ;  that  they  had  been  lost  five  days,  and 


R  O  G  E  R    TV'  I  1, 1. 1  A  M  S.  ]  55 

fell  into  our  path  but  six  miles.  Whereas  they  were  im- 
portuned to  come  ho-me,  &c.  they  pleaded  soreness  in 
t  ravelling,  and  therefore  their  desire  to  rest  there. 

"  The  next  morning  they  came  to  me  by  break  of  day, 
relating  that  the  old  man  at  Pawtucket  had  put  them  forth 
the  last  night,  because  that  some  Indians  said,  that  they 
had  hurt  an  Englishman,  and  therefore  that  they  lay 
between  us  and  Pawtucket. 

"  I  was  busy  in  writing  letters  and  getting  them  a  guide 
to  Connecticut,  and  inquired  no  more,  they  having  told  me, 
that  they  came  from  Plymouth  on  the  last  of  the  week  in 
the  evening,  and  lay  still  in  the  woods  the  Lord's  day,  and 
then  lost  their  way  to  Weymouth,  from  whence  they  lost 
their  way  again  towards  us,  and  came  in  again  six  miles  off 
Pawtucket. 

"  After  they  were  gone,  an  old  native  comes  to  me  and 
tells  me,  that  the  natives  round  about  us  were  fled,  relating 
that  those  four  had  slain  a  native,  who  had  carried  three 
beaver  skins  and  beads  for  Canonicus'  son,  and  came  home 
with  five  fathom  and  three  coats ;  that  three  natives  which 
came  after  him  found  him  groaning  in  the  path ;  that  he 
told  them  that  four  Englishmen  had  slain  him.  They 
came  to  Pawtucket  and  inquired  after  the  English,  which 
when  Arthur  and  his  company  heard,  they  got  on  hose  and 
shoes  and  departed  in  the  night. 

"  I  sent  after  them  to  Narraganset,  and  went  myself  with 
two  or  three  more  to  the  wounded  in  the  woods.  The 
natives  at  first  were  shy  of  us,  conceiving  a  general  slaugh- 
ter, but,  (through  the  Lord's  mercy)  I  assured  them  that 
Mr.  Governor  knew  nothing,  &c.  and  that  I  had  sent  to 
apprehend  the  men.  So  we  found  that  he  had  been  run 
through  the  leg  and  the  belly  with  one  thrust.  We  dressed 
him  and  got  him  to  town  next  day,  where  Mr.  James  and 
Mr.  Greene  endeavored,  all  they  could,  his  life  ;  but  his 
wound  in  the  belly,  and  blood  lost,  and  fever  following,  cut 
his  life's  thread. 

"  Before  he  died,  he  told  me,  that  the  four  English  had 
slain  him,  and  that,  (being  faint  and  not  able  to  speak)  he 
had  related  the  truth  to  the  natives  who  first  came  to  him, 
viz.  that  they,  viz.  the  English,  saw  him  in  the  Bay  and 
his  beads  ;  that  sitting  in  the  side  of  a  swamp  a  little  way 
out  of  the  path  (I  went  to  see  the  place,   fit  for  an  evil 


156  MEMOIR     OF 

purpose)  Arthur  called  him  to  drink  tobacco,  who  coming 
and  taking  the  pipe  of  Arthur,  Arthur  run  him  through  the 
leg  into  the  belly,  when,  springing  back,  he,  Arthur,  made 
the  second  thrust,  but  missed  him,  and  his  weapon  run  into 
the  ground ;  that  getting  from  them  a  little  way  into  the 
swamp,  they  pursued  him,  till  he  fell  down,  when  they 
missed  him,  and  getting  up  again,  when  he  heard  them 
close  by  him,  he  run  to  and  again  in  the  swamp,  till  he  fell 
down  again,  when  they  lost  him  quite ;  afterwards,  towards 
night,  he  came  and  lay  in  the  path,  that  some  passenger 
might  help  him  as  aforesaid. 

"  Whereas  they  said,  they  wandered  Plymouth  way, 
Arthur  knew  the  path,  having  gone  it  twice  ;  and  besides 
Mr.  Throckmorton  met  them  about  Naponset  river  in  the 
path,  who,  riding  roundly  upon  a  sudden  by  them,  was  glad 
he  had  past  them,  suspecting  them.  They  denied  that 
they  met  Mr.  Thockmorton. 

"  The  messenger  that  I  sent  to  Narraganset,  pursuing  after 
them,  returned  the  next  day,  declaring  that  they  showed 
Miantinomo's  letters  to  Aquetneck  (which  were  mine  to 
Connecticut)  and  so  to  Aquetneck  they  past,  whither  I  sent 
information  of  them,  and  so  they  were  taken.  Their  sud- 
den examination  they  sent  me,  a  copy  of  which  I  am  bold 
to  send  your  worship  enclosed. 

"  The  islanders  (Mr.  Coddington)  being  absent,  resolved 
to  send  them  to  us,  some  thought,  by  us  to  Plymouth,  from 
whence  they  came.  Sir,  I  shall  humbly  crave  your  judg- 
ment, whether  they  ought  not  to  be  tried  where  they  are 
taken.  If  they  be  sent  any  where,  whether  not  to  Ply- 
mouth. In  case  Plymouth  refuse,  and  the  islanders  send 
them  to  us,  what  answers  we  may  give,  if  others,  unjustly 
shift  them  unto  us.  I  know  that  every  man,  quatenus  man, 
and  son  of  Adam,  is  his  brother's  keeper  or  avenger ;  but 
I  desire  to  do  bonum  bene,  &.c. 

"  Thus,  beseeching  the  God  of  heaven,  most  holy  and 
only  wise,  to  make  the  interpretation  of  his  own  holy 
meaning  in  all  occurrences,  to  bring  us  all  by  these  bloody 
passages  to  a  higher  price  of  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  God, 
yea  of  God,  by  which  the  chosen  are  redeemed,  with  all  due 
respects  to  your  dear  self  and  dear  companion,  I  cease. 
''  Your  worship's  most  unworthy, 

''ROGER  WILLIAMS. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  157 

"  This  native,  Will,  my  servant,  shall  attend  your 
worship  for  answer. 

"  My  due  respect  to  Mr.  Deputy,  Mr.  Bellingham,  <&lc." 

Governor  Winthrop  advised  him  to  send  the  prisoners  to 
Plymouth.  He  complied,  and  three  of  them  (the  fourth  hav- 
ing effected  his  escape)  were  there  tried  for  murder.  They 
confessed  the  crime,  and  were  hung  at  Plymouth,  in  the 
presence  of  Mr.  Williams,  and  many  of  the  natives.  Two 
died  penitents,  especially  Arthur  Peach,  an  Irishman,  "  a 
young  man  (says  Governor  Winthrop)  of  good  parentage 
and  fair  condition,  and  who  had  done  very  good  servic-e 
against  the  Pequods." 

The  followinor   letter  of   Mr.  Williams  belongs  to  this 
period.     It  was  addressed  to  Governor  Winthrop  :* 
"  Much  honored  Sir, 

"  Through  the  mercy  of  the  Most  High,  I  am  newly 
returned  from  a  double  journey  to  Connecticut  and  Ply- 
mouth. I  shall  presume  on  your  wonted  love  and  gentle- 
ness, to  present  you  with  a  short  relation  of  what  issue  it 
pleased  the  Lord  to  produce  out  of  them,  especially  since 
your  worship's  name  was  in  some  way  engaged  in  both. 

"  I  went  up  to  Connecticut  with  Miantinomo,  who  had  a 
guard  of  upwards  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  many 
sachems,  and  his  wife  and  children  with  him.  By  the  way 
(lodging  from  his  house  three  nights  in  the  woods)  we  met 
divers  Narraganset  men  complaining  of  robbery  and  vio- 
lence which  they  had  sustained  from  the  Pequods  and 
Mohegans,  in  their  travel  from  Connecticut ;  as  also 
some  of  the  Wunnashowatuckoogs  (subject  to  Canonicus) 
came  to  us  and  advertised,  that  two  days  before,  about  six 
hundred  and  sixty  Pequods,  Mohegans  and  their  confeder- 
ates, had  robbed  them,  and  spoiled  about  twenty-three  fields 
of  corn,  and  rifled  four  Narraganset  men  amongst  them ; 
and  also  that  they  lay  in  way  and  wait  to  stop  Miantinomo's 
passage  to  Connecticut,  and  divers  of  them  threatened  to 
boil  him  in  a  kettle. 

"This  tidings  being  many  ways  confirmed,  my  company, 
Mr,  Scott,  (a  Suffolk  man,)  and  Mr.  Cope,  advised  our 
stop  and    return    back ;    unto  which  I    also    advised   the 

*  3  His.  Col.  i.  173-7.     The  letter  was  written  about  Sept.  1638. 
14* 


J  5S  IVI  E  M  O  I  R     O  F 

whole  company,  to  prevent  bloodshed,  resolving  to  get  up 
to  Connecticut  by  water,  hoping  there  to  stop  such  courses. 
But  Miantinomo  and  his  council  resolved,  (being  then 
about  fifty  miles,  half  way,  on  our  journey,)  that  not  a  man 
should  turn  back,  resolving  rather  all  to  die,  keeping  strict 
watch  by  night,  and  in  dangerous  places  a  guard  by  day 
about  the  sachems,  Miantinomo  and  his  wife,  who  kept  the 
path,  myself  and  company  always  first,  and  ''on  either'side 
of  the  path  forty  or  fifty  men  to  prevent  sudden  surprisals. 
This  was  their  Indian  march. 

"  But  it  pleased  the  Father  of  mercies,  that  (as  we  since 
heard)  we  came  not  by,  till  two  days  after  the  time  given 
out  by  Miantinomo,  (by  reason  of  staying  for  me  until  the 
Lord's  day  was  over)  as  also  the  Lord  sent  a  rumor  of  great 
numbers  of  the  English,  in  company  with  the  Narragansets, 
so  that  we  came  safe  to  Connecticut. 

*'  Being  arrived,  Uncas  had  sent  messengers  that  he  was 
lame,  and  could  not  come.  Mr.  Haynes  said  it  was  a  lame 
excuse,  and  sent  earnestly  for  him,  who  at  last  came, 
and  being  charged  by  Mr.  Haynes  with  the  late  outrages, 
one  of  his  company  said,  they  were  but  an  hundred  men. 
He  said  he  was  with  them,  but  did  not  see  all  was  done, 
and  that  they  did  but  roast  corn,  &.c.  So  there  being 
affirmations  and  negations  concerning  the  number  of  men 
and  the  spoil,  not  having  eye-witnesses  of  our  own,  that  fell, 
as  also  many  other  mutual  complaints  of  rifling  each  other, 
which  were  heard  at  large  to  give  vent  and  breathing  to 
both  parts. 

"  At  last  we  drew  them  to  shake  hands,  Miantinomo  and 
Uncas,  and  Miantinomo  invited  (twice  earnestly)  Uncas  to 
sup  and  dine  with  him,  he  and  all  his  company  (his  men 
having  killed  some  venison  :)  but  he  would  not  yield, 
although  the  magistrates  persuaded  him  also  to  it. 

"  In  a  private  conference,  Miantinomo,  from  Canonicus 
and  himself,  gave  in  the  names  of  all  the  Pequod  sachems 
and  murderers  of  the  English.  The  names  of  the  sachems 
were  acknowledged  by  Uncas,  as  also  the  places,  which 
only  I  shall  be  bold  to  set  down  : 

"  Nausipouck,  Puttaquappuonckquame  his  son,  now  on 
Long-Island. 

*'  Nanasquiouwut,  Puttaquappuonckquame  his  brother,  at 
Mohegan. 


ROGER     W  I  I,  L  I  A  M  S.  159 

*'  Puppompogs,  Sassacus  his  brother,  at  Mohegan. 

"  Mausaumpous,  at  Niantick. 

*' Kithansh,  at  Mohegan. 

"  Attayakitch,  at  Pequod  or  Mohegan. 

"  These,  with  the  murderers,  the  magistrates  desired  to 
cut  off,  the  rest  to  be  divided,  and  to  abolish  their  names. 
An  inquisition  was  made,  and  it  was  affirmed  from  Can- 
onicus,  that  he  had  not  one.  Miantinomo  gave  in  the 
names  of  ten  or  eleven,  which  were  the  remainder  of  near 
seventy,  which  at  the  first  subjected  themselves,  of  which  I 
advertised  your  worship,  but  all  again  departed  or  never 
came  to  him  ;  so  that  two  or  three  of  these  he  had  with 
him ;  the  rest  were  at  Mohegan  and  Pequod. 

"  Uncas  was  desired  to  give  in  the  names  of  his.  He  an- 
swered, that  he  knew  not  their  names.  He  said,  there  were 
forty  on  Long-Island  ;  and  that  Janemoh  and  three  Niantick 
sachems  had  Pequods,  and  that  he  himself  had  but  twenty. 
Thomas  Stanton  told  him  and  the  magistrates,  that  he  dealt 
very  falsely ;  and  it  was  affirmed  by  others,  that  he  fetched 
thirty  or  forty  from  Losg-Island  at  one  time.  Then  he  ac- 
knowledged, that  he  had  thirty,  but  the  names  he  could  not 
give.  It  pleased  the  magistrates  to  request  me  to  send  to 
Niantick,  that  the  names  of  their  Pequods  might  be  sent  to 
Connecticut ;  as  also  to  give  Uncas  ten  days  to  bring  in  the 
number  and  names  of  his  Pequods  and  their  runaways,  Mr. 
Haynes  threatening  also  (in  case  of  failing)  to  fetch  them. 

"  Sir,  at  Plymouth,  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  force  the  pri- 
soners to  confess,  that  they  all  complotted  and  intended 
murder ;  and  they  were,  three  of  them,  (the  fourth  having 
escaped,  by  a  pinnace,  from  Aquetneck,)  executed  in  the 
presence  of  the  natives  who  went  with  me.  Our  friends 
confessed,  that  they  received  much  quickening  from  your 
own  hand.  O  that  they  might  also  in  a  case  more  weighty, 
wherein  they  need  much,  viz.  the  standing  to  their  present 
government  and  liberties,  to  which  I  find  them  weakly 
resolved. 

"  They  have  requested  me  to  inquire  out  a  murder  five 
years  since  committed  upon  a  Plymouth  man,  (as  they  now 
hear)  by  two  Narraganset  Indians,  between  Plymouth  and 
Sowams.     I  hope,  (if  true)  the  Lord  will  discover  it. 

"  Sir,  I  understand  there  hath  been  some  Englishman  of 
late  come  over,  who  hath  told  much  to  Cutshamoquene's 


1 60  IM  C  M  O  I  R     OF 

Indians  (I  think  Auhandin)of  a  great  sacliem  in  England, 
(using  the  King's  name)  to  whom  all  the  sachems  in  this 
land  are  and  shall  be  nothing,  and  where  his  ships  ere  long 
shall  land ;  and  this  is  much  news  at  present  amongst  the 
natives.     I  hope  to  inquire  out  the  man. 

"  Mr.  Vane  hath  also  written  to  Mr.  Coddington  and 
others  on  the  island  of  late,  to  remove  from  Boston,  as 
speedily  as  they  might,  because  some  evil  was  ripening,  &c. 
The  most  holy  and  mighty  One  blast  all  mischievous  buds 
and  blossoms,  and  prepare  us  for  tears  in  the  valley  of  tears, 
help  you  and  us  to  trample  on  the  dunghill  of  this  present 
world,  and  to  set  affections  and  cast  anchor  above  these 
heavens  and  earth,  which  are  reserved  for  burning. 

"  Sir,  I  hear,  that  two  malicious  persons,  (one  I  was  bold 
to  trouble  your  worship  with  not  long  since)  Joshua  Verin, 
and  another  yet  with  us,  William  Arnold,  have  most  falsely 
and  slanderously  (as  I  hope  it  shall  appear)  complotted  to- 
gether (even  as  Gardiner  did  against  yourself)  many  odious 
accusations  in  writing.  It  may  be,  they  may  some  way 
come  to  your  loving  hand.  I  presume  the  end  is  to  render 
me  odious  both  to  the  King's  Majesty,  as  also  to  yourselves. 
I  shall  request  humbly  your  wonted  love  and  gentleness  (if 
it  comes  to  your  worship's  hand)  to  help  me  with  the  sigh* 
of  it,  and  I  am  confident  yourself  shall  be  the  judge  of  the 
notorious  wickedness  and  malicious  falsehoods  contained 
therein,  and  that  there  hath  not  passed  aught  from  me,  either 
concerning  the  maintaining  of  our  liberties  in  this  land,  or 
any  difference  with  yourselves,  w  hich  shall  not  manifest  loy- 
alty's reverence,  modesty  and  tender  affection. 

"  The  Lord  Jesus,  the  sun  of  righteously*  shine  brightly 
and  eternally  on  you  and  yours,  and  all  that  seek  him  that 
was  crucified.     In  him  I  desire  ever  to  be, 
**  Your  worship's  most  unfeigned, 

''ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  All  respective  salutations  to  kind  Mrs.  Winthrop,  Mr. 
Deputy,  Mr.  Bellingham,  and  theirs." 

In  September,  1638,  Mr.  Williams'  eldest  son  was  born, 
to  whom  his  father  save  the  name  of  Providence.     He  is 


righteousness  ? 


ROGER    \VTLI,IAMS.  '         161 

said  to  have  been  the  first  English  male  child,  who  was  born 
there. 

We  may  here  appropriately  mention,  the  establishment  of 
Harvard  College.  The  great  and  good  men  who  presided 
over  the  councils  of  Massachusetts  felt,  that  learning  and 
religion  are  the  firmest  pillars  of  civil  liberty.  In  their 
weakness,  they  resolved  to  establish  a  college.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1636,  during  the  Pequod  war,  the  General  Court 
appropriated  for  the  purpose,  four  hundred  pounds,  equal 
to  the  whole  sum  raised  by  taxation,  in  one  year,  in  the 
whole  colony,  for  the  support  of  the  civil  government.  Rev. 
John  Harvard,  who  died  September  14,  1638,  left  to  the 
college  nearly  eight  hundred  pounds,  being  half  of  his 
property.  The  General  Court  gave  to  the  college  his 
honored  name,  and  called  that  part  of  Newtown  where  it 
had  been  erected,  Cambridge. 

During  the  year,  1638,  the  colony  at  New-Haven  was 
commenced,  by  Theophilus  Eaton,  John  Davenport,  and 
others,  who  purchased  the  land  of  the  Indians,  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  city  of  New-Haven.  The  colony 
bore  the  same  name,  until  1665,  when  it  was  united  with 
that  which  had  been  commenced  at  Hartford,  and  assumed 
the  common  name  of  Connecticut. 

In  May,  of  this  year,  an  arbitrary  order  was  issued  in 
England,  to  prevent  emigration  to  America.  Eight  ships, 
which  were  on  the  point  of  sailing  for  New-England,  were 
stopped.  By  this  order,  Oliver  Cromwell,  Sir  Arthur  Haz- 
lerig,  John  Hampden,  and  others,  were  prevented  from 
coming  to  America.  The  King  had  afterwards  abundant 
reason  to  lament  his  interference  to  detain  these  men,  who 
so  largely  contributed  to  subvert  his  throne.*  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  curious  speculation,  what  would  have  been  the  course 
and  fortunes  of  Cromwell,  if  he  had  reached  our  shores. 
How  different  might  have  been  the  history  of  England,  for 
the  next  fifty  years. 

^  '•  Nescia  mens  hominum  fati  sortisque  futurse. 
Turno  tempus  erit,  magno  cum  optaverit  emptum 
Intactum  Pallanta,"  JEnds,  x.  501-4. 


1 62  M  E  •M  O  I  R     OF 


CHAPTER    XITT 

Baptism  of  Mr.  Williams — establishment  of  the  First  Baptist  Church 
in  Providence — Mr.  Williams  soon  leaves  tlie  church. 

Having  related  the  principal  facts,  which  can  now  be 
ascertained,  concerning  the  settlement  of  Providence  and 
Newport,  it  is  prosier  to  say  something  of  ecclesiastical  af- 
fairs. We  must  lament,  in  vain,  that  so  little  is  known 
on  this  subject.  We  have  no  account,  from  Mr.  V/illiams 
or  his  friends,  of  the  manner  in  which  the  public  worship 
of  God  was  maintained,  and  the  first  church  formed  at 
Providence.  The  notices  which  may  be  gleaned  from 
writers,  who,  for  various  reasons,  were  not  disposed  to  look 
on  the  new  colony  with  a  favorable  eye,  must,  obviously,  be 
received  with  caution. 

We  might  be  sure,  from  the  known  character  of  Mr. 
Williams,  and  of  his  companions,  that  they  would  meet  to- 
gether for  the  public  worship  of  God.  Mr.  Williams  was 
acknowledged,  at  Plymouth  and  Salem,  to  be  an  able  min- 
ister, and  he  would,  of  course,  preach  to  those  who  might 
choose  to  hear  him,  at  Providence.  We  learn  from  Win- 
throp,*  that  he  was  accustomed  to  hold  meetings,  both  on 
the  Sabbaths,  and  on  week  days.  It  does  not  appear,  that 
there  was,  at  first,  any  organization  into  a  distinct  church ; 
though,  perhaps^  those  who  had  been  members  of  the  church 
in  Salem,  regarded  themselves  as  still  a  church,  and  Mr. 
Williams  as  their  pastor. t  They  were,  at  first,  few  in 
number,  and  were  obliged  to  provide  dwellings  and  subsist- 
ence for  themselves  and  their  families.  They  were  not 
able  to  erect  a  house  of  worship,  and  tradition  states,  that 
in  pleasant  weather  they  met  in  a  grove.  On  other  occa^ 
sions,  they  probably  convened,  either  at  the  house  of  Mr. 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  283,  akeady  quoted. 

t  Governor  Hopkins  thinks,  that  there  v/aa  a  church  formed  on 
Congregational  i)rinciples, before  Mr.  Williiins"  baptism. — History  of 
Providence,  in  2  Mass.  His.  Col.  ix.  p.  1;){J.  This  is  not  probable,  for 
nothing  is  said  by  the  writers  in  Massacliusctts.  of  such  a  church, 
and  the  members  of  the  church  in  Salem,  who  removed  to  Provi- 
dence, were  not  excluded  from  that  church,  till  Jii'ter  their  baptism. 
Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  371. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  16^ 

Williams,  or  at  some  other  private  habitation ;  and,  un- 
doubtedly, enjoyed,  in  their  humble  assemblies,  the  presence 
of  Him,  who  is  nigh  to  all  who  fear  Him,  and  who  prefers 
*'  above  all  temples,  the  upright  heart  and  pure."* 

It  should  be  remembered,  that  the  colony  was  a  refuge 
for  all  who  pleased  to  reside  there ;  and  that,  as  Winthrop 
states,  "  at  their  first  coming,  Mr,  Williams  and  the  rest  did 
make  an  order^  that  no  man  should  be  molested  for  his  con- 
science." The  inhabitants  were  consequently  free  to  wor- 
ship God  as  they  thought  proper.  They  were  not  all  united 
in  opinion  on  religious  subjects.  Mr.  Williams  may  have 
judged  it  to  be  most  conducive  to  the  peace  and  welfare  of 
his  little  colony,  to  erect,  at  first,  no  distinct  church,  but 
to  gather  the  inhabitants  into  one  assembly  for  worship ; 
until  the  number  should  have  so  increased,  as  to  enable 
them  to  form  separate  churches,  and  maintain  public  wor- 
ship conformably  to  their  own  views. 

After  the  lapse  of  two  or  three  years,  the  colony  had  in- 
creased, by  the  accession  of  emigrants  from  England,  as 
well  as  from  the  other  colonies.  Some  of  these  are  said  by 
Hubbard,  (336)  to  have  been  inclined  to  the  principles  of  the 
Baptists.  By  what  means  Mr.  Williams'  mind  was  drawn 
to  a  consideration  of  baptism,  we  do  not  know.  He  was 
accused,  before  his  banishment,  of  preaching  doctrines 
"  tending  to  anabaptistry  ;t  a  charge  which  was  meant  to 
impute  to  him  principles  subversive  of  civil  order,  rather 
than  heterodox  notions  concerning  the  rite  of  baptism.  It 
does  not  appear,  that  he  had  then  adopted  any  views  on 
this  point,  opposed  to  the  practice  of  the  churches  in  Massa- 
chusetts ;  for  if  he  had  then  insisted  on  immersion,  and  re- 
jected the  baptism  of  infants,  these  opinions  would  certainly 
have  been  placed  prominently  among  the  reasons  for  his 
banishment. 

That  his  principles  tended  to  ''  anabaptistry,"  using  this 
word  as  referring  to  the  principles  now  held  by  the  Baptists, 
is  doubtless  true.  His  views  of  the  distinction  between  the 
Mosaic  institutions  and  the  christian  church ;  his  rever- 
ence for  the  supreme  authority  of  Jesus  Christ ;  his  appeals 

*The  first  church  in  Boston,  several  of  whose  members  were 
wealthy,  existed  two  years  before  they  began  to  build  a  meeting- 
house.    Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  87. 

t  Morton's  Memorial,  p.  151. 


164  MEMOIR     OP 

to  the  Scriptures  as  the  only  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and 
to  the  New  Testament  as  th-e  statute  book  of  the  Christian 
church  ;  his  assertion  and  defence  of  the  independent  right, 
and  imperative  obligation,  of  every  individual  to  search  the 
oracles  of  God,  and  follow  their  teachings,  without  dictation 
or  restraint  from  other  men  ;  his  bold  and  uniform  procla- 
mation of  the  unfettered  liberty  of  conscience,  in  those  con- 
cerns which  pertain  to  the  intercourse  between  God  and 
the  soul,  will  doubtless  be  acknowledged  by  the  Baptists, 
to  have  had  a  strong  tendency  to  lead  Mr.  Williams  to  adopt 
their  distinctive  views  of  the  Christian  ordinances. 

Nor  will  it  be  considered,  by  other  men,  as  a  very  strange 
vagary  of  an  unstable  mind,  that  a  clergyman,  educated 
in  the  Church  of  England,  should  adopt  the  opinion,  that 
immersion  is  the  only  scriptural  baptism,  when  that  church 
had  taught  him,  in  her  offices,  that  baptism  must  be  so  ad- 
ministered, except  in  cases  of  weakness  or  disease.  Nor 
ought  Mr.  Williams  to  be  severely  censured  for  denying 
that  infants  are  proper  subjects  of  this  ordinance,  when  it 
is  recollected,  that  the  first  President  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, (Dunster,)  held  the  same  opinion  ;  and  the  second 
President  (Chauncy)  so  far  followed  in  the  same  course,  as 
to  insist,  that  baptism  should  be  administered,  to  infants  and 
adults,  by  immersion  only.*  Mr.  Williams  will,  at  least,  be 
viewed  as  excusable,  by  those  who  agree  with  a  learned 
Pedobaptist  of  our  own  times,  that  "  it  is  a  plani  case,  there  is 
no  express  precept  respecting  infant  baptism  in  our  sacred 
writings."!  If  Mr.  Williams  could  not  find  infant  baptism 
in  the  Scriptures,  his  rejection  of  it  was  a  natural  result  of 
his  principles,  and  may  candidly  be  ascribed  to  his  single- 
hearted  deference  to  the  authority  of  the  Bible  ;  though  his 
reputation  for  ingenuity  may  suffer,  because  he  was  unable 
'*  to  make  out  the  proof  in  another  way." 

We  are  not,  therefore,  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  adopt- 
ing Governor  Winthrop's  account  of  Mr.  Williams'  change 
of  opinion.  That  account  attributes  the  blame  to  an 
artful  woman,  a   sister  of  the  great  heresiarch  of  those 

*  Peirce's  History  of  Harvard  University,  pp   10,  18. 

t  Dr.  Woods^  on  Infant  Baptism,  Lecture  I. — He  adds,  "  the  proof 
then,  that  infant  baptism  is  a  divine  institution,  must  be  made  out 
in  another  way." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  165 

limes,  Mrs.  Hutchinson.*  We  may,  not  unreasonably,  sup- 
pose, that  Mr.  Williams,  on  further  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  finding  that  several  of  the  colonists  had  embraced  Bap- 
tist principles,  was  himself  convinced,  that  he  had  not  been 
baptized.  He  accordingly  resolved  to  obey  the  Saviour's 
command,  and  unite  in  a  church,  with  such  persons  as 
might  be  willing  to  join  him. 

A  difficulty  now  presented  itself.  They  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  Episcopal  church,  and  were  accustomed  to 
regard  the  clergy  with  respect,  as  the  only  legal  adminis- 
trators of  the  Christian  ordinances.  Mr.  Williams  himself 
seems  to  have  strongly  felt  this  difficulty  ;  and  his  scruples 
on  this  point,  probably,  had  some  effect  on  his  subsequent 
conduct.  He  had  not  himself  been  immersed,  and  it  seemed 
a  reasonable  conclusion,  that  he  could  not,  with  propriety, 
baptize  his  brethren,  till  he  had  received  baptism.  There 
was  no  other  minister  in  New-England,  who  would  have 
baptized  him,  if  he  had  made  an  application,  and  his  ban- 
ishment from  Massachusetts  had  been  suspended. 

The  most  obvious  expedient,  in  their  circumstances,  was 
adopted.  Mr.  Ezekiel  Hollimant  was  selected  to  baptize 
Mr.  Williams,  who  then  baptized  the  administrator  and  ten 
others. I  This  event  occurred  in  March,  1638-9.  Thus 
was  founded  the  first  Baptist  church  in  America,  and  the 


*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  293.  Under  date  of  March,  1638-9,  he  says : 
*' At  Providence,  things  grew  still  worse ;  for  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son, the  wife  of  one  Scott,  being  infected  with  anabaptistry,  and  go- 
ing last  year  to  live  at  Providence,  Mr.  Williams  was  taken  (or  rather 
emboldened)  by  her  to  make  open  profession  thereof,  and  according- 
ly was  re-baptized  by  one  Holliman,  a  poor  man,  late  of  Salem.  Then 
Mr.  Williams  re-baptized  him  and  some  ten  more.  They  also  denied 
the  baptizing  of  infants,  a,nd  would  have  no  magistrates." 

t  Governor  Winthrop  (vol.  i.  p.  293)  calls  Mr.  Holliman  "a  poor 
man,"  which  Hubbard,  (338)  in  copying,  alters  to  a  "  mean  fellow." 
But  Mr.  Benedict  says,  that  he  was  a  man  of  ^'  gifts  and  piety,"  and 
that  he  was  chosen  an  assistant  to  Mr.  Williams.  Backus  says, 
"  after  the  year  1650,  I  find  him  more  than  once  a  Deputy  from  the 
town  of  Warwick  in  the  General  Court." — Vol.  i.  p.  106. 

t  The  first  twelve  members  are  named  by  Benedict,  (vol.  i.  p.  473.) 
Roger  Williams,  Ezekiel  Holliman,  William  Arnold,  William  Harris, 
Stukely  Westcott,  John  Green,  Richard  Waterman,  Thomas  James, 
Robert  Cole,  William  Carpenter,  Francis  Weston,  and  Thomag 
Olney. 

15 


166  MEMOIR     OF 

second,  as  it  is  stated,  in  the  British  empire.*  The  church 
was  soon  after  increased  by  the  addition  of  twelve  other 
persons. 

The  validity  of  this  baptism  of  Mr.  Williams  and  his 
companions  having  been  disputed,  it  may  be  proper  to  ex- 
amine this  point. 

The  spirit  of  the  Scriptures,  if  not  their  letter,  assigns  to 
the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  the  duty  of  administering  the 
ordinances  of  the  church.  Expediency  obviously  requires 
an  adherence  to  this  general  principle.  But  the  language 
of  the  Bible  is  not  so  decisive  on  this  point,  as  to  make  it 
certain,  that  a  layman  might  not,  in  cases  where  a  minister 
could  not  be  obtained,  administer  the  ordinances.  It  is 
known,  that  in  the  earliest  ages  of  the  church,  while  there 
was  a  general  observance  of  the  principle,  that  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  ordinances  belongs  to  ministers,  laymen  were 
occasionally  permitted  to  baptize.  Mosheim  says  :  ''At 
first,  all  who  were  engaged  in  propagating  Christianity,  ad- 
ministered this  rite ;  nor  can  it  be  called  in  question,  that 
whoever  persuaded  any  person  to  embrace  Christianity, 
could  baptize  his  own  disciple. "t  Tertullian  says,  "  Lay- 
— '   ^  

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  106,  note.  "  There  had  been  many  of  them  [Bap- 
tists] intermixed  with  other  societies  from  their  first  coming  out  of 
Popery ;  but  their  first  distinct  church  in  our  nation  was  formed  out 
of  the  Independent  Church  in  London,  whereof  Mr.  Henry  Jacob  was 
pastor,  from  1G16  to  1C24,  when  he  went  to  Virginia,  and  Mr.  John 
Lathrop  was  chosen  in  his  room.  But  nine  years  after,  several  per- 
sons in  the  society,  finding  that  the  congregation  kept  not  to  their 
first  principles  of  separation,  and  being  also  convinced,  that  baptism 
was  not  to  be  administered  to  infants,  but  such  only  as  professed  faith 
in  Christ,  desired  and  obtained  liberty,  and  formed  themselves  into 
a  distinct  church,  Sept.  12,  1633,  having  Mr.  John  Spisbury  for  their 
minister." — Crosby,  vol.  i.  pp.  148,  149.  In  the  year  1639,  another 
Baptist  church  was  formed  in  London,  but  probably  not  so  early  as 
the  church  at  Providence. 

t  Mosheim,  b.  1,  c.  1,  p.  2,  ch.  4,  s.  8.  See  Campbell's  Lectures 
on  Ecclesiastical  History,  lecture  iv.  for  proof,  that  laymen,  in  the 
early  times  of  the  Christian  era,  often  baptized.  He  quotes  Hilary, 
who,  in  his  Exposition  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  4:  11,  12, 
says,  ''  Postquam  omnibus  locis  ecclesiee  sunt  constitutae,  et  otficia 
ordinata,  aliter  composita  res  est,  quam  coeperat;  primum  enim 
omnes  docebant,  et  omnes  baptizabant,  quibuscunque  diebus  vel 
temporibus  fuisset  occasio."  That  is,  when  churches  were  every 
where  constituted,  and  official  duties  prescribed,  things  were  other- 
wise regulated,  than  at  first,  when  all  taught,  and  all  baptized,  when- 
ever occasion  required. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  167 

men  have  power  to  baptize,  which  yet,  for  the  sake  of 
order,  they  ought  only  to  use  in  cases  of  necessity."*  Am- 
brose says  :  "  That  at  the  beginning,  laymen  were  permitted 
to  preach  and  baptize,  in  order  to  increase  the  number  of 
Christians. "f  Augustine  affirms,  "  that  it  is  a  very  small 
fault,  or  none  at  all,  for  laymen  to  baptize,  in  cases  of  ur- 
gent necessity."!  Jerome  speaks  of  it  as  a  thing  certain, 
that  "  laymen  may  lawfully  baptize,  when  there  is  urgent 
necessity  for  it."§  There  were,  it  is  true,  at  a  very  early 
period,  erroneous  views  of  the  indispensable  necessity  of 
baptism  to  salvation,  which  led  to  various  unauthorized 
practices.  But  the  principle,  that  laymen  might  lawfully 
baptize,  in  certain  exigencies,  seems  to  have  been  early  ad- 
mitted, and  it  was  formally  sanctioned  by  a  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Eliberis.jl 

But  the  reason  of  the  case  is  of  more  weight  than  the  de- 
cisions of  councils.  It  sometimes  happens,  that  persons 
become  Christians,  without  the  direct  labors  of  a  minister. 
If,  for  example,  by  the  agency  of  the  Scriptures  and  tracts, 
which  missionaries  are  now  sending  into  the  Chinese  em- 
pire, a  number  of  persons  in  a  neighborhood  should  be- 
come converts,  would  it  not  be  their  privilege  and  their 
duty,  if  they  were  sufficiently  instructed  respecting  the  nature 
of  the  church  and  of  its  ordinances,  to  appoint  one  of  their 
number  to  baptize  the  rest,  to  form  themselves  into  a  church, 
and  to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ?  Must  these  believers 
wait,  till  a  missionary  could  come  to  baptize  them,  and  to 
organize  a  church  1  The  great  ends  for  which  the  church 
and  its  ordinances  were  appointed, — the  spiritual  edification 
of  believers,  and  the  spread  of  truth, — would  require  that 
these  Christians  should  enjoy  them.     If  it  were  indispensa- 


*Lib.  de  baptismo,  cap.  xvii.  Laicis  etiam  jus  est  (baptizandi.) 
Sufficiat  in  necessitatibus  utaris,  sicubi  aut  loci,  aut  temporis,  aut 
personEB  conditio  compellit. 

t  S.  Ambrosius  in  Eph.  iv. 

t  S.  Augustinus  contra  Padmenian,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xiii. 

§  Hieronymus,  adv.  Luciferianas,  cap.  v. — See  Potter  on  Church 
Government,  p.  231,  &c.  Pliil.  ed.  for  otlier  authorities. 

II  Concil,  Elib.  Can.  xxxviii. — Peregre  navigantes,  aut  si  Ecclesia 
in  proximo  non  fuerit,  posse  fidelem,  qui  lavacrum  suum  integ- 
rum liabet,  nee  sit  bigamus,  baptizare  in  necessitate,  ita  ut,  si  super- 
yixerit,  ad  Episcopum  suum  perducat,  ut  per  ma,nus  impositionem 
perfici  possit. — Quoted  by  Potter,  p.  232. 


168  MEMOIR     OF 

ble,  that  the  administrator  be  a  minister,  there  would,  in 
such  a  case,  be  no  insuperable  difficulty.  The  duty  of  the 
converts  to  assemble,  to  pray,  and  to  exhort  each  other, 
would  be  clear.  Their  voluntary  agreement  thus  to  meet, 
to  maintain  mutual  watchfulness,  and  to  enjoy  the  or- 
dinances of  the  Gospel,  would  constitute  them  a  church. 
They  might  call  one  of  their  number,  possessing,  in  their 
judgment,  suitable  gifts,  to  the  office  of  the  ministry,  and  this 
election  by  the  church  wovdd  be  the  only  human  sanction 
which  such  a  minister  would  need,  to  authorize  him  to  preach 
the  Gospel,  and  to  administer  the  ordinances.*  This  posi- 
tion cannot  be  denied,  without  resorting  to  the  doctrine  of  a 
regular  apostolical  succession.  If  the  church  has  no  power 
to  originate  a  ministry,  by  investing  with  the  sacred  office 
those  to  whom,  in  her  judgment,  the  Saviour  has  given  the 
inward  vocation,  the  ministry  might  become  extinct.  Those 
who  insist  on  an  apostolical  succession,  are  obliged  to  trace 
their  ministry  through  the  channel  of  the  papal  clergy. 
They  are  forced  to  admit,  that  the  Pope  is  a  true  bishop,  and 
the  Catholic  community  a  Christian  church.  Archbishop 
Laud  confessed,  that  "  it  is  through  her  that  the  bishops  of  the 
Church  of  England,  who  have  the  honor  to  be  capable  of 
deriving  their  calling  from  St.  Peter,  must  deduce  their  suc- 
cession."t  If  the  race  of  English  prelates  had  become  ex- 
tinct, as  might  have  happened,  had  Cromwell's  life  been  pro- 
longed a  few  years,  the  Church  of  England  would  have  been 
reduced  to  the  embarrassing  dilemma,  of  consecrating  bish- 
ops by  her  own  authority,  and  thus  dissolving  the  charm  of 
succession,  or  of  sending  an  humble  embassy  to  Rome,  to 
crave  from  his  Holiness  the  communication,  anew,  of  the 
mysterious  virtue. 

If,  then,  a  company  of  believers  in  China  might,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament,  appoint  an 
administrator  of  the  ordinances,  the  little  band  of  Baptists 
at  Providence  were  fully  authorized  to  do  it.|     No  minister 


*  Mr.  Holliman,  who  baptized  Mr.  Williams,  became  a  preacher. 

t  Neal,  vol.  iii.  p.  233. 

tThe  excellent  John  Robinson,  the  father  of  the  Plymouth  colony, 
had  a  controversy  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bernard,  an  Episcopal  minister. 
Mr.  Robinson  wrote  a  book,  entitled  ''  A  Justification  of  Separation 
from  the  Church  of  England." — In  this  book,  he  uses  the  same  ar- 
gument as  that  in  the  text :  ''  Zanchy,  upon  the  fifth  to  the  Ephe» 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  169 

could  have  been  obtained,  in  America,  to  baptize  Mr.  Wil- 
liams. The  case  was  one  of  obvious  necessity,  and  the 
validity  of  the  baptism  cannot  be  denied,  without  rejecting 
the  fundamental  principle,  on  which  dissenting  churches 
rest,  that  all  the  ecclesiastical  power  on  earth  resides  ul- 
timately in  the  church,  and  that  she  is  authorized  to  adopt 
any  measures,  not  repugnant  to  the  Scriptures,  which  may 
be  necessary  for  her  preservation  and  prosperity.  What- 
ever the  New  Testament  has  positively  prescribed,  must  of 
course  be  strictly  obeyed. 

In  regard  to  those  whom  Mr.  Williams  baptized,  there 
can  be  no  dispute.  He  was  a  clergyman  of  the  ChrTich  of 
England,  and  Pedobaptists  must  admit,  that  immersion,  ad- 
ministered by  him,  was  Christian  baptism.  Their  own 
ministers  not  unfrequently  administer  the  rite  in  this  man- 
ner, and  the  persons  thus  baptized  are  received  as  regular 
members  of  their  churches.* 


sians,  treating  of  baptism,  propounds  a  question  of  a  Turk,  coming  to 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  and  to  faith  by  reading  the  New  Testament, 
and  withal  teaching  his  family  and  converting  it  and  others  to  Christ, 
and  being  in  a  country  whence  he  cannot  easily  come  to  Christian 
countries,  whether  he  may  baptize  them,  whom  he  hath  converted 
to  Christ,  he  himself  being  unbaptized  ?  He  answers,  I  doubt  not  of 
it,  but  that  he  may,  and  withal  provide  that  he  himself  be  baptized 
of  one  of  the  three  converted  by  him.  The  reason  he  gives  is,  be- 
cause he  is  a  minister  of  the  word,  extraordinarily  stirred  up  by 
Christ ;  and  so  as  such  a  minister  may,  with  the  consent  of  that 
small  church,  appoint  one  of  the  communicants,  and  provide  that  he 
be  baptized  by  him."     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  106. 

*The  question,  wliich  has  been  asked,  with  some  emphasis,  as  if 
it  vitally  affected  the  Baptist  churches  in  this  country :  '*  By  whom 
7cas  Roger  Williams  baptized?"  has  no  practical  importance.  All 
whom  he  immersed  were,  as  Pedobaptists  must  admit,  baptized.  The 
great  family  of  Baptists  in  this  countrj  did  not  spring  from  the  First 
Church  in  t'rovidence.  Many  Baptist  ministers  and  members  came, 
at  an  early  period,  from  Europe;  and  thus  churches  were  formed  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  which  have  since  multiplied  over  the 
land.  The  first  Baptist  church  formed  in  the  present  State  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, is  the  church  at  Swansea.  Its  origin  is  dated  in  1663, 
when  the  Rev.  John  Miles  came  from  Wales,  with  a  number  of  the 
members  of  a  Baptist  church,  who  brought  with  them  its  records. 
It  was,  in  fact,  an  emigration  of  a  church.  Of  the  400,000  Baptist 
communicants  now  in  the  United  States,  a  small  fraction  only  have 
had  any  connection,  either  immediate  or  remote,  with  the  venerable 
church  at  Providence,  though  her  members  are  numerous,  and  she  has 
been  honored  as  the  mother  of  many  ministers.  The  question,  dis- 
cussed in  the  preceding  pages,  disturbed,  for  a  while,  the  first  English 
15* 


170  MEMOIR     OF 

At  what  time,  and  under  what  circumstances,  Mr.  Wil- 
liams left  the  church,  has  been  a  vexed  question  among 
writers.  Callender,  (p.  56,)  expresses  a  doubt,  whether 
Mr,  Williams  ever  belonged  to  the  church,  and  adds  :  "  The 
most  ancient  inhabitants  now  alive,  some  of  them  above 
eighty  years  old,  and  who  personally  knew  Mr.  Williams, 
and  were  well  acquainted  with  many  of  the  original  settlers, 
never  heard  that  Mr.  Williams  formed  the  Baptist  church 
there,  but  always  understood,  that  Mr.  Brown,  Mr.  Wick- 
enden,  Mr.  Dexter,  Mr.  Olney,  Mr.  Tillinghast,  &:-c.  were 
the  first  founders  of  that  church."  But  Mr.  Callender  was 
under  a  mistake,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Backus,*  he  was 
afterwards  convinced  of  his  error.  The  records  of  the 
church,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Benedict  (vol.  i.  p.  476,)  assert, 
that  "  Mr.  Williams  held  his  pastoral  office  about  four  years, 
and  then  resigned  the  same  to  Mr.  Brown  and  Mr.  W^ick- 
enden,  and  went  to  England,  to  solicit  the  first  charter." 
This  statement,  also,  is  incorrect. 

Winthrop  (vol.  i.  p.  307,)  says,  under  the  date  of  June 
or  July,  1639 :  ''  At  Providence,  matters  went  on  after  the 
old  manner.  Mr.  Williams  and  many  of  his  company  a  few 
months  since  were  in  all  haste  re-baptized,  and  denied 
communion  with  all  others ;  and  now  he  was  come  to  ques- 
tion his  second  baptism,  not  being  able  to  derive  the  au- 
thority of  it  from  the  apostles,  otherwise  than  by  the  minis- 
ters of  England,  (whom  he  judged  to  be  ill  authority)  so 
as  he  conceived  God  would  raise  up  some  apostolic  power. 
Therefore  he  bent  himself  that  way,  expecting  (as  was  sup- 
posed) to  become  an  apostle ;  and  having  a  little  before  re- 
fused communion  with  all,  save  his  own  wife,  now  he  would 

Baptists.  They  had  no  clerical  administrator,  who  had  himself,  in 
their  view,  been  baptized.  Some  of  them  went  to  Holland,  and  were 
baptized  by  Baptist  ministers  there.  "  But,"  says  Crosby,  (vol.  i.  p. 
103,)  ''  the  greatest  number  of  the  English  Baptists,  and  the  more 
judicious,  looked  upon  all  this  as  needless  trouble,  and  what  pro- 
ceeded from  the  old  Popish  doctrine  of  right  to  administer  sac- 
raments by  ail  uninterrupted  succession,  which  neither  the  Church 
of  Rome,  nor  the  Church  of  England,  much  less  the  modern  dis- 
senters, could  prove  to  ^e  with  them.  They  affirmed,  therefore, 
and  practised  accordingly,  tn^t  after  a  general  corruption  of  bap- 
tism, an  unbaptized  person  might  warrantably  baptize,  and  so  begin 
a  reformation."  These  examples,  however,  cannot  justify  a  departure 
from  the  usual  practice  of  our  churches  at  the  present  day.  when  the 
inin'ptrv  if.  rof^nlarlv  epfoblipbrd. 


ROGER    WILLIAM  S.  1*/ 1 

preach  to  and  pray  with  all  comers.  Whereupon  some  of 
his  followers  left  him  and  returned  back  from  whence  they 
went.'' 

According  to  this  paragraph,  Mr.  Williams  left  the  church 
about  three  or  four  months  after  its  formation.  This  fact 
is  confirmed  by  a  letter  of  Richard  Scott,  inserted  in  George 
Fox's  "  Firebrand  Quenched."  Scott  says  of  Roger 
Williams,  "  I  walked  with  him  in  the  Baptist  way,  about 
three  or  four  months,  in  which  time  he  broke  from  the  so- 
ciety, and  declared  at  large  the  grounds  and  reason  of  it, 
that  their  baptism  could  not  be  right,  because  it  was  not 
administered  by  an  apostle.  After  that,  he  set  up  a  way  of 
seeking  with  two  or  three  that  had  dissented  with  him,  by 
way  of  preaching  and  praying ;  and  there  he  continued  a 
year  or  two,  till  two  of  the  three  left  him."* 

Mr.  Scott  was  at  Providence,  when  the  church  was 
formed,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  he  soon  became  a 
member  of  it,  though  he  afterwards  joined  the  Quakers. 
The  "  three  or  four  months"  which  he  mentions  must,  on 
this  supposition,  be  estimated  as  commencing  at,  or  near, 
the  formation  of  the  church,  and  consequently  Mr.  Williams 
must  have  left  it  in  June  or  July,  1639,  as  Winthrop  states. 

Of  his  reasons  for  this  step,  we  are  not  clearly  informed. 
The  motives  assigned  by  those  who  disapproved  his  con- 
duct, are  loosely  stated,  and  must  be  received  with  caution. 
The  principal  reason,  as  stated  by  Winthrop,  Scott,  and 
others,  was,  that  Mr.  Williams  doubted  the  validity  of  the 
baptism  which  he  and  his  associates  had  received,  because 
it  was  not  "  administered  by  an  apostle,"  or  because  he 
could  not  "  derive  the  authority  of  it  from  the  apostles, 
otherwise  than  by  the  ministers  of  England,  whom  he  judged 
to  be  ill  authority." 

Of  Mr.  Williams'  real  views  at  this  time,  we  have  no  ex- 
planation by  himself;  but  if  we  may  judge  from  his  writ- 
ings a  few  years  later,  he  denied,  that  any  ministry  now 
exists,  which  is  authorized  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  im- 
penitent, or  to  administer  the  ordinances.  He  believed, 
that  these  functions  belonged  to  the  apostolic  race  of  min- 
isters, which  was  interrupted  and  discontinued,  when  the 
reign  of  Antichrist  commenced,  and  which  will  not,  as  he 
thought,  be  restored,  till  the  witnesses  shall  have  been  slain, 


172  MEMOIR    OP 

and  raised  again.  (Rev.  11:  11.)  In  his  "  Bloody  Te- 
net," printed  in  1644,  several  passages  occur,  in  which  he 
intimates,  that  the  true  church  and  ministry  are  now  lost. 
The  following  paragraph  may  be  quoted,  both  as  an  illus- 
tration of  his  views  and  as  a  proof  of  his  liberal  charity  : 
He  speaks  of  "  thousands  and  ten  thousands,  yea,  the  whole 
generation  of  the  righteous,  who,  since  the  falling  away 
(from  the  first  primitive  Christian  state  or  worship)  have 
and  do  err  fundamentally  concerning  the  true  matter,  con- 
stitution, gathering  and  governing  of  the  Church  ;  and  yet 
far  be  it  from  any  pious  breast  to  imagine,  that  they  are  not 
saved,  and  that  their  souls  are  not  bound  up  in  the  bundle 
of  eternal  life," — (p.  20.)  He  says,  in  his  "  Hireling  Min- 
istry none  of  Christ's,"  published  in  1652:  "In  the  poor 
small  span  of  my  life,  I  desired  to  have  been  a  diligent  and 
constant  observer,  and  have  been  myself  many  ways  en- 
gaged, in  city,  in  country,  in  court,  in  schools,  in  universi- 
ties, in  churches,  in  Old  and  New  England,  and  yet  cannot, 
in  the  holy  presence  of  God,  bring  in  the  result  of  a  satisfy- 
ing discovery,  that  either  the  begetting  ministry  of  the 
apostles  or  messengers  to  the  nations,  or  the  feeding  and 
nourishing  ministry  of  pastors  and  teachers,  according  to 
the  first  institution  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  are  yet  restored  and 
extant."     (p.  4.) 

The  only  ministry,  which,  in  his  opinion,  now  exists,  is 
that  of  prophets,  i.  e.  ministers,  who  explain  religious  truths, 
and  bear  witness  against  error.  In  a  passage  of  the  same 
work,  he  says  :  "  Ever  since  the  beast  Antichrist  rose,  the 
Lord  hath  stirred  up  the  ministry  of  prophecy,  who  must 
continue  their  witness  and  prophecy,  until  their  witness  be 
finished,  and  slaughters,  probably  near  approaching,  accom- 
plished." 

We  shall  have  occasion  to  disclose  his  opinions  more 
fully  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  The  passages  which  we 
have  quoted  were  not  printed  till  a  few  years  after  he  left 
the  church,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  they  explain 
his  conduct  on  that  occasion.  His  mind,  like  the  minds 
of  many  other  good  men,  became  blinded  "  by  excess  of 
light,"  while  gazing  at  the  glorious  visions  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse ;  and  he  formed  the  conclusion,  that  in  the  disastrous 
antichristian  apostacy,  the  true  ministry  and  the  whole  ex- 
terior organization  of  the  church  went  to  ruin,  from  which, 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  173 

however,  as  he  believed,  they  shall  be  restored,  and  the 
Saviour's  kingdom  shall  come  on  earth. 

We  need  not  pause,  now,  to  show,  that  his  views  were 
erroneous.  We  must  deeply  regret,  that  he  formed  them  ; 
but  we  can  have  no  doubt  of  his  sincerity.  A  temperament 
like  his  impelled  him  to  hasty  decisions,  but  his  love  of  truth 
held  a  supreme  sway  over  his  mind.  No  considerations 
could  deter  him  from  adopting,  and  carrying  into  instant 
practice,  whatever  he  believed  to  be  true.  Nothing  but 
clear  conviction  could  induce  him  to  relinquish  what  he 
considered  as  right.  His  principle  of  action  on  this  subject 
is  beautifully  expressed  in  a  passage  of  his  Bloody  Tenet : 
"  Having  bought  truth  dear,  we  must  not  sell  it  cheap,  not 
the  least  grahi  of  it,  for  the  whole  world ;  no  not  for  the 
saving  of  souls,  though  our  own  most  precious,  least  of  all 
for  the  bitter  sweetening  of  a  little  vanishing  pleasure." 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  he  left  the  church,  not  be- 
cause he  had  any  doubts  respecting  the  nature  of  baptism ; 
nor  because  he  had  been  baptized  by  a  layman  ;  but  because 
he  believed,  that  no  man  is  now  authorized  to  administer 
the  ordinances,  and  that  no  true  church  can  exist,  till  the 
apostolic  ministry  shall  be  restored.  With  these  views,  he 
could  not  conscientiously  remain  connected  with  any 
church,  nor  regard  his  baptism  as  valid. 

Winthrop  states,  that  he  expected,  "  as  was  supposed,  to 
become  an  apostle."  This  supposition  is  not  entitled  +o 
much  weight.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  he  believed  ti^e 
restoration  of  the  church  and  its  ministry  to  be  not  far  dis- 
tant, and  he  might  reasonably  hope,  should  he  live  to  wit- 
ness this  glorious  event,  to  be  honored  with  a  vocation  to 
this  high  ministry. 

The  statement  of  Winthrop,  that  "  having  a  little  before 
refused  communion  with  all,  save  Ms  own  wife,  now  he 
would  preach  to  and  pray  with  all  comers,"  deserves  a  pass- 
ing remark.  The  phrase,  "  a  little  before,"  apparently  re- 
fers to  the  time  of  Mr.  Williams'  residence  at  Salem.  But 
Morton,  (p.  153)  and  Hubbard,  who  copies  him,  (p.  207) 
assert,  that  "  he  withdrew  all  private  religious  communion 
from  any  that  would  hold  communion  with  the  church  there  ; 
insomuch  as  he  would  not  pray  nor  give  thanks  at  meals 
with  his  02vn  wife,  nor  any  of  his  family,  because  they  went 
to  the  church  assemblies,"      Here   Winthrop's  statement 


174  MEMOIR    OF 

respecting  Mr.  Williams'  wife  is  directly  opposed  to  that  of 
Morton  and  Hubbard.  It  is  probable,  that  they  were  all 
under  a  mistake. 

The  disputed  point,  whether  Mr.  Williams  was  the  first 
pastor  of  the  church,  or  not,  does  not  appear  to  present  a 
material  difficulty.  He  would,  we  may  suppose,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  be  the  pastor  of  the  church  while  he  remained 
in  connection  with  it.  He  was  the  only  ordained  minister 
at  Providence,  and  though  there  may  have  been  no  formal 
election,  we  cannot  reasonably  doubt,  that  he  was  consid- 
ered as  the  pastor.  Richard  Scott  accuses  him,  in  his  letter, 
of  a  disposition  to  manage  every  thing  according  to  his  own 
pleasure  ;  a  charge,  which,  coming  from  an  adversary,  may 
imply  no  more  than  that  Mr.  Williams  was  the  head  of  the 
church.  When  he  left  it,  he  ceased,  of  course,  to  be  its 
pastor.  He  was  succeeded  by  the  Rev.  Chad  Brown,  though 
not,  as  it  appears,  till  after  an  interval  of  two  years ;  for  the 
records  of  the  church  assert,  that  he  was  not  ordained  till 
the  year  1642.^*  We  may  easily  suppose,  that  as  Mr.  Wil- 
liams' connection  with  the  church  was  very  short,  Mr.  Brown 
was  considered  as  the  first  pastor,  even  by  his  contempora- 
rAes,and  that  this  impression  was  transmitted  to  their  descend- 
ants. It  was  not  unnatural,  moreover,  for  the  church  to 
bj  willing  to  recognise  Mr.  Brown  as  the  first  pastor,  rather 
than  a  man  who  soon  left  them,  and  who  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge them,  or  any  other  body  of  men,  to  be  a  true 
church.  It  is  possible,  that  other  causes  had  some  influ- 
ence ill  the  case.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  Mr.  Brown 
has  been  generally  believed  to  have  been  the  first  pastor  of 
the  church.t     He  was,  unquestionably,  the  first  regular  and 

*  Benedict,  vol.  i.  p.  477. 

t  John  Howland,  Esq.,  in  a  letter  to  the  author,  says  :  "  The  col- 
lege was  built  in  1770.  On  the  question  among  the  founders  of  it, 
on  what  lot  to  place  the  buildings  they  decided  on  the  present  site  of 
the  old  college,  because  it  was  the  home  lot  of  Chad  Brown,  the  first 
minister  of  the  Baptist  church.  Other  land  could  have  been  obtained, 
but  the  reason  given  prevailed  in  fixing  the  site.  Had  the  impres- 
sion been  prevalent,  that  Roger  Williams  was  the  first  minister  or 
principal  founder  of  the  society,  his  home  lot  could  have  been  pur- 
chased, which  was  a  situation  fully  as  eligible  for  the  purpose.  If 
any  doubts  rested  in  the  minds  of  the  gentlemen  at  that  time,  as  to 
the  validity  of  the  claim  of  Chad  Brown  to  this  preference,  perhaps 
the  circumstance  of  Mr.  Williams'  deserting  the  order,  and  protesting 
against  it,  might  have  produced  the  determination  in  favor  of  Brown." 


R  O  (i  £  R     VV  I  L  L  1  A  M  S.  1 75 

permanent  pastor,  and  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  chief 
founders.  It  is  not  probable  that  he  contended  for  the 
honor  while  he  lived,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  there  was 
no  strife,  on  this  point,  between  him  and  Roger  Williams, 
who  speaks  of  him,  in  a  letter  written  in  1677,  as  "  a  wise 
and  godly  soul,  now  with  God." 

We  have  thus  stated  the  facts,  concerning  Mr.  Williams' 
conduct,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain  them. 
We  see  that  he  acted  from  erroneous  views,  in  leaving  the 
church,  and  we  lament  that  he  was  thus  misled  into  a  course 
injurious  to  religion  and  to  his  own  spiritual  welfare.  But 
we  see  nothing  .which  impeaches  his  religious  character  ; 
and  his  future  life  furnished  abundant  evidence  of  his  piety 
towards  God,  and  of  his  love  to  men.  He  adopted  no  errors, 
except  his  views  respecting  the  ministry  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  church.  The  great  truths  of  the  Gospel  he 
steadfastly  believed.  His  life  exhibited  their  efficacy,  and 
his  heart  felt  their  consoling  power. 

The  church  continued  in  existence,  after  Mr.  Williams 
left  it.  The  statement  of  Richard  Scott,  that  *'  he  broke 
from  the  society,''  implies,  that  the  society  itself  or  church 
remained.  The  Rev.  Chad  Brown  became  its  pastor,  and 
a  succession  of  good  men  have  continued  to  labor  for  the 
Lord,  in  that  church,  till  the  present  day.  The  church  has 
experienced  some  of  the  usual  vicissitudes  to  which  all 
things  on  earth  are  liable  ;  but  it  has  never  ceased  to  exists 
and  for  the  most  part  it  has  enjoyed  great  prosperity. 

No  meeting-house  was  built  till  about  1700,  when  the 
Rev.  Pardon  Tillinghast,  the  pastor,  erected  a  house  at  his 
own  expense.*  This  long  delay  to  build  a  meeting-house 
may  be,  in  part,  explained,  by  the  poverty  of  the  inhab- 
itants, and  by  the  diversity  of  religious  opinions  which  pre- 
vailed among  them.  But  we  can  scarcely  acquit  the 
church  of  some  deficiency  in  zeal   and  liberality.      We 


*  This  house  was  built  on  the  west  side  of  North  Main  street,  near 
its  junction  with  Smith  street,  and  a  short  distance  north  of  Roger 
Wilhams'  spring.  It  was  probably  a  small  and  rather  rude  building. 
Tradition  states,  that  it  was  ''  in  the  shape  of  a  hay  cap,  with  a  fire- 
place in  the  middle,  the  smoke  escaping  from  a  hole  in  the  roof."  It 
was  taken  down,  and  a  larger  building  erected  in  1718.  In  1774-5, 
the  spacious  and  elegant  house  now  occupied  by  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  was  erected 


176  MEMOIR    OP 

must  presume,  however,  that  they  had  a  stated  place  of 
worship.  Their  numbers  were,  at  this  period,  small,  and 
they  had,  perhaps,  sufficient  humility  to  be  content  with 
very  primitive  accommodations.  To  Him  whom  they  wor- 
shipped, the  sincere  offerings  of  pious  hearts  were  accept- 
able, however  humble  the  place  from  which  they  as- 
cended. 

Of  the  religious  doctrines  of  this  church,  Mr.  Benedict 
(vol.  i.  p.  486)  says :  "  It  was  first  formed  on  the  Particu- 
lar or  Calvinistic  plan.  In  process  of  time,  they  became 
what  our  English  brethren  would  call  General  Baptists, 
and  so  continued  for  the  most  part  more  than  a  hundred 
years.  From  the  commencement  of  Dr.  Manning's  minis- 
try, they  have  been  verging  back  to  their  first  principles, 
and  now  very  little  of  the  Arminian  leaven  is  found  among 
them." 

These  facts  show,  that  Mr.  Cotton  and  his  grandson, 
Cotton  Mather,  were  mistaken,  when  they  affirmed  of  the 
church  at  Providence,  that  they  "  broke  forth  into  ana- 
baptism,  and  then  into  antibaptism  and  familism,  and  now 
finally  into  no  church  at  all."  *  Perhaps  Mr.  Cotton  would 
not  acknowledge,  that  the  congregation  of  Baptists  at  Prov- 
idence deserved  the  name  of  a  church.  Mr.  Williams  and 
his  wife,  with  several  others  of  the  members,  were  excom- 
municated from  the  church  at  Salem,  of  which  they  were 
retained  as  members  till  they  were  baptized.!     A  Baptist 


"  Magnalia,  b.  vii.  sec.  7.  Gov.  Hopkins,  (a  member  of  the  Soci- 
ety of  Friends)  says,  in  his  history  of  Providence,  written  in  1765, 
"  This  church  hath,  from  its  beginning,  kept  itself  in  repute,  and 
maintained  its  disciphne,  so  as  to  avoid  scandal  or  schism,  to  this 
day.  It  hath  always  been,  and  still  is,  a  numerous  congregation, 
and  in  which  I  have  with  pleasure  observed,  very  lately,  sundry  de- 
scendants from  each  of  the  founders  of  the  colony,  except  Holliman." 
2  His.  Col.  ix.  197. 

t  The  letter,  announcing  their  exclusion,  to  the  church  at  Dor- 
chester, may  properly  be  quoted  here,  as  an  illustration  of  the  cus- 
toms of  those  times : 

"  Salem,  1st  5th  mo.  39. 
"  Reverend  and  dearly  beloved  in  the  Lord, 

''  We  thought  it  our  bounden  duty  to  acquaint  you  with  the  names 
of  such  persons  as  have  had  the  great  censure  passed  upon  them  in 
this  our  church,  with  the  reasons  thereof,  beseeching  you  in  the 
Lord,  not  only  to  read  their  names  in  public  to  yours,  but  also  to 


nOGER     WILLIAMS.  17t 

church,  thus  constituted,  could  not  be  viewed  with  much 
favor  by  Mr.  Cotton  and  his  friends.  A  church,  which 
was  formed  this  year  at  Newport,  though  Congrega- 
tional in  form,  and  orthodox,  it  is  presumed,  in  its  doc- 
trines, is  mentioned,  in  a  tone  of  censure,  by  Winthrop, 
and  after  him,  by  Hubbard,  (339)  as  having  been  gathered 
in  a  "  very  disordered  way,  for  they  took  some  excommu- 
nicated persons,  and  others  who  were  members  of  the 
church  of  Boston,  and  not  dismissed."*  The  leaders, 
both  in  church  and  state,  in  Massachusetts,  were  not  then 
in  a  mood  to  be  pleased  with  any  thing  which  occurred  in 
Rhode-Island.  It  would  have  been  well  if  this  feeling  had 
expired  with  the  first  age.  But  local  prejudice  is  almost 
as  durable  as  the  natural  features  of  a  country.  Boeotia 
incurred,  among  the  Greeks,  a  contempt,  which   the  fame 


give  us  the  like  notice  of  any  dealt  with  in  like  n;ianne.r  by  you,  tha,t 
so  we  may  v/alk  towards  them  accordingly;  for  some  of  us,  here, 
have  had  coniniunion  ignorantly  with  some  of  other  churches.  2 
Thess.  iii.  14.  We  can  do  no  less  than  have  such  noted  as  disobey 
the  truth. 

'•'Roger,  Williams  and  his  wife,  John  Throgmorton  and  his 
wife,  Thomas  Olney  and  his  wife,  Stukely  Westcott  and  his 
wife,  Mary  Holliman,  Widov/  Reeves. 

'•'  These  ^vholly  refused  to  hear  the  church,  denying  it,  and  all  the 
churches  in  the  Bay,  to  be  true  churches,  and  (except  two)  are  all 
re-baptized. 

"  John  Elford,  for  obstinacy,  after  divers  sins  he  stood  guilty  of^ 
and  proved  by  witness.  William  James,  for  pride,  and  divers 
other  evils,  in  vrhich  he  remained  obstinate.  John  Tabby,  for 
much  pride,  and  unnaturalness  to  his  wife,  who  was  lately  exe- 
cuted for  murdering  her  child.  William  Walcot,  for  refusing  ta 
bring  his  children  to  the  ordinance,  neglecting  willingly  family  du- 
ties, &c. 

''Thus,  v/ishing  the  continued  enjoyment  of  both  the  staves, 
beauty  and  bands,  and  that  your  souls  may  flourish  as  watered  gar- 
dens, rest, 

"  Yours  in  the  Lord  Jesus, 

"  HUGH  PETERS, 
'^  By  the  Church's  order,  and  in  their  name. 

"  For  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Dorchester." 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  i.  p.  297.  Mr.  Savage  remarks,  in  a  note  :  ''  Those 
members  of  Boston  church,  who  had  been  driven  by  intolerance 
to  the  new  region,  if  they  gathered  a  church  at  all,  must  do  it  in  a 
disordered  way,  for  they  might  well  apprehend,  that  an  application 
for  dismission  would  be  rejected,  and  perhaps  punished  by  excom- 
munication." 

16 


178  MEMOIR     OF 

of  Pindar,  Hesiod  and  Epaminondas  could  not  soften.* 
Nazareth  seems  to  have  acquired  a  similar  distinction 
among  the  Jews.t  Rhode-Island  may  regret,  yet  cannot 
greatly  wonder,  that  her  sisters  have  sometimes  remember- 
ed the  circumstances  of  her  origin,  better  than  the  purity 
of  her  principles  and  the  steadiness  of  her  patriotism. 
Many,  since  Mr.  Cotton,  have  been  inclined  to  doubt, 
whether  there  was  any  true  religion  in  Rhode-Island,  and 
to  believe,  with  Winthrop,  that  there  was  no  good  govern- 
ment. But  let  her  not  be  moved.  Time  is  brightening 
the  fame  of  her  founder,  and  the  reflected  lustre  will  attract 
the  eyes  of  men  to  a  fairer  contemplation  of  her  char- 
acter. 

*  Horace    (Ep.  lib.  ii.  Ep.  i.  244)  has  a  pungent  sarcasm,  ending 
thus  : 

*•  BcEotum  in  crasso  jurares  aera  natum." 
t  John,  i.  46. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  179' 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


Affairs  of  the  Indians — birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  fourth  child — dis- 
putes at  Providence  about  boundaries — Committee  of  Arbitration — 
account  of  Samuel  Gorton. 

Little  is  known  of  transactions,  during  two  or  three 
subsequent  years,  which  can  shed  light  on  the  conduct  or 
character  of  Mr.  Williams.  Winthrop*  mentions  one  cir- 
cumstance, that  shows  the  confidence  which  the  Indians  re- 
posed in  the  founder  of  Rhode-Island,  and  the  invincible 
opposition  to  him  that  was  maintained  in  Massachusetts. 
Rumors  were  circulated,  that  the  Indians  were  again 
forming  plots  against  the  colonists ;  that  Miantinomo,  the 
Narraganset  sachem,  had  sent  a  large  present  of  wampum 
to  the  Mohawks,  inviting  them  to  an  alliance  against  the 
English,  and  that  the  Mohawks  had  complied  with  the  in- 
vitation. The  government  of  Massachusetts  took  the  pre- 
caution to  strengthen  the  military  defences  of  the  towns, 
and  to  send  an  officer,  with  three  men  and  an  interpreter, 
to  Miantinomo,  to  ascertain  his  real  dispositions.  He  de- 
nied all  hostile  intentions  against  the  colonists,  and,  says 
Winthrop,  "  promised  to  come  to  Boston  (as  he  was  desired) 
if  Mr.  Williams  might  come  with  him,  (but  that  we  had 
denied.") 

It  is  pleasing  to  observe  the  readiness  of  this  savage 
chief  to  visit  those  who  evidently  distrusted  him,  provided 
that  Mr.  Williams  might  accompany  him,  in  whose  knowl- 
edge of  his  language,  and  firm  friendship,  he  felt  a  confi- 
dence proportioned  to  the  suspicions  which  savages  feel 
towards  all  whom  they  have  not  thoroughly  tried.  And  it 
is  remarkable,  that  the  rulers  of  Massachusetts  would  not 
relax  the  sentence  of  banishment,  even  for  the  advantage 
of  a  personal  interview  with  the  powerful  sachem. 

Mr.  Williams  was  doubtless  employed  at  Providence,  in 
labors  for  the  welfare  of  the  colony,  and  for  the  subsist- 
ence of  his  family.     He  possessed   no  property,  and  was 

"  Vol.  ii.  p.  8. 


180  MEMOIR      OF 

obliged  to  support  his  wife  and  children  by  his  personal 
labor.  We  have  already  seen,  that,  at  his  first  coming,  he 
planted  his  field,  Wkatcheer,  with  his  own  hands.  He  en- 
gaged, also,  in  traffic  with  the  natives,  and  must  have  spent 
much  time  in  travelling  among  them.  The  knowledge  of 
their  language,  which  he  displayed  in  his  Key,  published  a 
few  years  afterwards,  could  have  been  acquired  only  by  a 
familiar  and  frequent  intercourse  with  them,  in  their  own 
habitations.  He  assures  us,  in  his  preface,  that,  "  of  later 
times,  (out  of  desire  to  attain  their  language,)  I  have  run 
through  varieties  of  intercourses  with  them,  day  and  night, 
summer  and  winter,  by  land  and  sea.  Many  solemn  dis- 
courses I  have  had  with  all  sorts  of  nations  of  them,  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  another.* 

His  fourth  child,  Marcy,  was  born  on  the  15th  of  July, 
1640. 

The  tranquillity  of  the  town  of  Providence  was  early 
disturbed,  by  disputes  respecting  the  boundaries  of  lands. 
The  town  was  divided  into  two  settlements,  the  original 
one  at  Moshassuck,  and  that  on  the  Pawtuxet  river.  These 
two  communities  were  much  agitated,  at  various  times,  by 
dissensions  concerning  their  respective  limits.  The  loose 
phraseology  of  the  memorandum  attached  to  the  deed  of 
the  sachems,  "  up  the  streams  of  Pawtucket  and  Pawtux- 
et, without  limits,  we  might  have  for  our  use  of  cattle," 
was  construed,  by  some,  as  a  cession  of  the  land  up  to  the 
sources  of  the  streams ;  while  Roger  Williams,  more  rea- 
sonably, insisted,  that  the  Indians  merely  meant  to  allow 
the  cattle  to  feed  occasionally  on  the  banks  of  the  rivers. 
Of  this  dispute  we  shall  see  more  hereafter.  It  seems  to 
have  commenced  very  early,  and  to  have  seriously  disturb- 
ed the  peace  of  the  town.  It  became  evident  that  a  more 
energetic  government  was  necessary.  A  committee  was 
appointed  by  the  town,  consisting  of  Robert  Coles,  Chad 
Brown,  William  Harris,  and  John  Warner,  who  were  au- 
thorized to  decide,  by  arbitration,  the  existing  disputes. 
Their  report  is  dated  "  Providence,  the  27th  of  the  5th 
month,  in  the  year  (so  called)  1(340. "t  It  settles  the 
boundaries  between  the  Pawtuxet  purchasers  and  the  other 


Williams'  Key,  p.  22.  Providence  ed.         t  See  Appendix  D. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  181 

inhabitants  of  Providence.  It  proposes  that  five  men  be 
chosen,  to  meet  once  a  month,  to  dispose  of  lands,  with  a 
right  of  appeal  to  the  town.  It  further  recommends,  that 
disputes  be  settled,  in  future,  by  arbitration,  according  to 
certain  rules  which  it  prescribes.  It  provides  for  the 
choice  of  a  town  clerk,  and  for  a  general  town  meeting  for 
business,  to  be  called  by  the  clerk,  every  three  months. 

This  report  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  times,  and  of 
the  community.  One  of  its  prominent  articles  is  in  these 
words  :  "  We  agree,  as  formerly  hath  been  the  liberties  of 
the  town,  so  still,  to  hold  forth  liberty  of  conscience." 
This  fundamental  principle  was  recognised,  and  an- 
nounced, on  all  occasions. 

The  democratic  spirit  appears  in  the  provision,  that  the 
"  five  disposers"  should  present  their  accounts  every  quar- 
ter, and  a  new  choice  be  made. 

No  form  of  government  could  be  more  simple  than  this. 
Mr.  Callender  says,  (p.  43)  in  allusion  to  this  period,  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Providence  "did,  to  the  number  of  near 
forty  persons,  combine  in  a  form  of  civil  government,  ac- 
cording to  a  model  drawn  up  by  some  of  themselves,  as 
most  suitable  to  promote  peace  and  order  in  their  present 
circumstances,  which,  however,  left  them  in  a  very  feeble 
condition." 

The  government  on  Rhode-Island  was  more  regularly 
organized  the  same  year,  as  we  have  already  stated.  x4n 
act,  which  was  passed  on  the  I6th  of  March,  1641,  says : 
"  It  was  ordered,  and  unanimously  agreed  upon,  that  the 
government  which  this  body  politic  doth  attend  unto  in 
this  island  and  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  in  favor  of  our 
Prince,  is  a  Democracy,  or  popular  government,  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  freemen,  orderly  assembled, 
or  major  part  of  them,  to  make  or  constitute  just  laws,  by 
which  they  will  be  regulated,  and  to  depute  from  among 
themselves  such  ministers  as  shall  see  them  faithfully  exe- 
cuted between  man  and  man." 

The  genuine  Rhode-Island  doctrine  is  recognised  in  the 
following  act :  "It  was  further  ordered,  by  the  authority 
of  this  present  Court,  that  none  be  accounted  a  delinquent 
for  doctrine,  provided  it  be  not  directly  repugnant  to  the 
government  or  laws  established."  And  on  the  17th  of 
16* 


182  MEMOIR    OF 

September  following,  1641,  they  passed  this  act:  "It  is 
ordered,  that  that  law  of  the  last  Court,  made  concerning 
liberty  of  conscience  in  point  of  doctrine,  be  perpetu- 
ated."* 

It  thus  appears,  that  the  settlements  at  Providence,  and 
on  Rhode-Island,  though,  at  that  time,  having  no  political 
connection,  were  founded  on  the  same  principles.  Mr. 
Williams  continued  his  friendly  offices  with  the  Indians,  on 
behalf  of  the  colony  on  Rhode-Island.  On  the  19th  of 
September,  1642,  he  was  requested  "  to  consult  and  agree 
with  Miantinomo,  for  the  destruction  of  the  wolves  that  are 
now  upon  the  island." 

The  history  of  Samuel  Gorton  is  a  prominent  event 
among  the  occurrences  of  this  period.  We  cannot  enter 
into  a  minute  detail  of  his  conduct,  his  opinions,  and  his 
sufferings;  but  a  brief  account  of  him  is  required,  by  his 
connection  with  Mr.  Williams. 

Mr.  Gorton  was  born  in  London,  and  came  to  Boston  in 
1636.  Here,  his  religious  opinions  and  conduct  occasion- 
ed, as  we  are  told,  much  disturbance,  and  he  removed  to 
Plymouth,  in  1637.  He  there  engaged  in  a  controversy 
with  Mr.  Smith,  the  pastor,  who  appealed  to  the  civil 
power.  Gorton  was  summoned  before  a  court  in  Plymouth, 
at  which  he  maintained  his  opinions  with  firmness,  and,  as 
the  court  thought,  with  insolence.  He  was  amerced  in  a 
large  fine,  and  banished,  after  having  suffered,  according 
to  some  writers,!  corporal  punishment.  He  removed  to 
Newport,  on  Rhode-Island,  in  June,  1638.  There  he  re- 
mained for  a  year  or  two ;  but  he  gave  offence  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and,  as  some  authors  assert,!  he  was  imprison- 
ed, whipped,  and  banished  from  the  island,  probably  in  the 


""  See  R.  I.  State  Papers,  2  Mass.  His.  Col.  viii.  p.  78. 

t  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  113.     Allen's  Bio.  Die.  article  Gorton. 

I  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  113.  Wintlirop,  vol.  ii.  p.  59.  Lecliford, 
an  author  quoted  by  JNIr.  Savage,  in  a  note,  says  :  "  There  (Newport) 
lately  they  whipped  Mr.  Gorton,  a  grave  man,  for  denying  their 
power,  and  abusing  some  of  their  magistrates  with  uncivil  terms, 
the  Governor,  Master  Coddington,  saying  in  Court,  You  that  are 
for  the  King,  lay  hold  on  Gorton,  and  he.  again,  on  the  other  side, 
called  forth,  All  you  that  are  for  the  King,  lay  hold  on  Coddington ; 
whereupon  Gorton  was  banished  the  island  ;  so,  with  his  wife,  he 
went  to  Providence.     They  began  about  a  small  trespass  of  swine. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  183 

course  of  the  year  1641.  These  transactions  are  not 
vouched  by  very  satisfactory  evidence  ;  and  we  know  not, 
admitting  that  they  occurred,  to  whom  the  blame  belongs, 
or  in  what  proportion  it  must  be  shared  by  Mr.  Gorton  and 
his  judges. 

From  Newport,  he  proceeded  to  Providence,  where,  says 
Hutchinson,  "  Roger  Williams,  with  his  usual  humanity, 
although  he  disliked  his  principles  and  behavior,  gave  him 
shelter."  Mr.  Williams,  many  years  afterwards,  publicly 
averred,*  that  he  did  not  approve  of  Mr.  Gorton's  princi- 
ples ;  but  this  disapprobation  did  not  induce  him  to  refuse 
the  rights  of  hospitality  to  the  fugitive.  He  had  himself 
tasted  of  the  same  cup,  and,  like  Dido,  had  been  taught  by 
suffering  to  succor  the  miserable. 

Mr.  Gorton,  in  January,  1641-2,  purchased  land  at 
Pawtuxet,  in  the  south  part  of  the  territory  then  included 
under  the  name  of  Providence,  and  within  the  limits  of  the 
present  town  of  Cranston.  He  was  soon  joined  by  a  num- 
ber of  persons,  who  were  disfranchised  at  Newport,  on 
account,  perhaps,  of  their  attachment  to  him. 

A  disturbance  soon  arose  between  Mr.  Gorton's  friends 
and  the  former  inhabitants.  The  parties  became  so  much 
exasperated,  that  they  proceeded  to  acts  of  violence  and 
bloodshed.  Winthrop  states,  that  "  they  came  armed  into 
the  field,  each  against  the  other,  but  Mr.  Williams  pacified 
them  for  the  present."  Mr.  Williams  could  not  but  de- 
plore such  a  feud,  in  his  infant  colony,  and,  with  the  pa- 
cific disposition  which  ever  characterized  him,  he  endeav- 
ored to  allay  the  tumult,  and  produce  a  reconciliation  ;  but 
his  efforts  were  unsuccessful.  The  passions  of  the  parties 
were  too  strongly  excited,  to*  admit  of  any  arbitration  but 
force.  The  government  at  Providence  was  then,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  simple  compact ;  and  the  citizens  being 
divided  in  opinion  and  feeling,  there  was  no  superior  power 


but  it  is  thought  some  other  matter  was  ingredient."  Lechford's 
tract,  called  Plain  Dealing,  or  News  from  New-England,  is  publish- 
ed in  the  Mass.  His.  Col.  3d  series,  3d  vol.  Lechford's  preface  is 
dated  January  17,  1641,  after  his  return  from  America.  He  says 
that  there  were  two  hundred  families  on  Rhode-Island.  This  must 
be  a  mistake. 

*  Reply  to  Mr.  Cotton,  p.  113. 


184  MEMOIR    OF 

to  control  the  disturbers  of  the  public  peace.  In  this  exi- 
gency, in  November,  1641,  some  of  the  weaker  party  had 
recourse  to  the  strange,  and,  as  it  proved,  most  disastrous 
expedient,  of  applying  to  the  government  of  Massachusetts 
for  aid  or  counsel.*  The  country  was  beyond  the  limits 
of  Massachusetts,  which  could  not  inter  fore.  "  We  an- 
swered them,"  says  Winthrop,t  "  that  we  could  not  levy 
any  war,  without  a  General  Court.  For  counsel,  we  told 
them,  that  except  they  did  submit  themselves  to  some  ju- 
risdiction, either  Plymouth  or  ours,  we  had  no  calling  or 
warrant  to  interpose  in  their  contentions,  but  if  they  were 
once  subject  to  any,  then  they  had  a  calling  to  protect 
them."| 

*  In  3  Mass.  His.  Col.  vol.  i.  p.  2.  is  theii- letter,  signed  by  William 
Field,  William  Harris,  William  Carpenter,  William  Wickenden, 
William  Reinolds,  Thomas  Harris,  Thomias  Hopkins,  Hugh  Bewitt, 
Joshua  Winsor,  Benedict  Arnold,  William  Man,  William  W.  Hunk- 
inges,  and  Robert  R.  West.  The  letter  was  written  by  Benedict 
Arnold.  Roger  Williams,  also,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  government  of 
Massachusetts,  in  which  he  said,  '•  Mr.  Gorton,  having  foully  abus- 
ed high  and  low,  at  Aquetneck,  is  now  bewitching  and  bemadding 
poor  Providence."  General  Court's  Vindication,  May  30,  1665.  It 
has  been  said,  that  Mr.  Williams  requested  the  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts to  interfere;  but  we  have  seen  no  evidence  of  this,  and 
it  is  in  itself  highly  improbable.  The  utmost  wliich  we  can  sup- 
pose him  to  ask,  in  such  a  case,  would  be  temporary  aid  in  sup- 
pressing a  tumult.  We  may  be  sure  that  he  would  oppose  the 
usurpation  of  jurisdiction  by  Massachusetts.  His  letters  show  that 
he  disaporoved  it. 

t  Vol.  n.  p.  59. 

;  Winthrop  introduces  this  account,  by  the  remark,  that  "  those  of 
Providence,  being  all  anabaptists,  were  divided  in  judgment;  some 
were  only  against  baptizing  of  infants,  others  denied  all  magistracy 
and  chuiches,  &c.  of  v/hich  Gorton,  who  had  lately  been  whipped 
at  Aquetneck,  [Newport]  was  their  instructer  and  captain."  I'his 
observation  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  it  shows  how  loosely  this  fearful 
word  anabaptist  was  applied,  and  as  it  discriminates  between  those 
who  merely  rejected  the  baptism  of  infants,  and  those  who  denied 
all  magistracy  and  churches.  It  is  certain,  that  all  the  inhabitants 
were  not  Baptists;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  allegation  against 
Mr.  Gorton,  that  he  was  opposed  either  to  churches  or  magistracy, 
could  be  sustained.  A  letter  from  the  Hon.  Sam.uel  Eddy,  inserted 
in  a  note  to  Winthrop's  Journal,  vol.  ii.  p.  58,  after  mentioning  that 
Gorton  was  in  office  almost  constantly,  after  the  establishment  of 
a  government,  says  :  '•  It  would  be  a  remarkable  fact,  that  a  man 
should  be  an  enemy  to  magistracy,  to  religion,  in  short,  a  bad  man, 
and  yet  constantly  enjoy  the  confidence  of  his  fellow  townsmen,  and 
receiv.^  from  them  the  highest  honors  in  their  gift." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  185 

The  proposition  to  submit,  either  to  Massachusetts  or  to 
Plymouth,  did  not  meet  with  a  very  prompt  reception  by 
the  aggrieved  party  at  Pawtuxet.  But,  in  September, 
1642,  four  of  them  (William  Arnold,  Robert  Cole,  William 
Carpenter,  and  Benedict  Arnold,)  appeared  before  the 
General  Court,  at  Boston,  and  yielded  themselves  and  their 
lands,  to  be  governed  and  protected  by  Massachusetts. 
They  were  accepted,  and  Winthrop  acknowledges  that 
Massachusetts  was  desirous  to  spread  her  sway  over  the 
whole  of  the  rising  colonies  around  the  Narraganset  Bay, 
The  right  of  these  individuals  to  submit  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  Massachusetts  must  be  denied ;  for  the  territory  had 
been  purchased  by  Mr.  Williams,  and  sold  to  his  compan- 
ions and  others,  with  the  evident  design,  and  the  implied, 
if  not  express  condition,  that  a  new  colony  be  established, 
as  a  refuge  from  the  laws  of  Massachusetts,  as  well  as  from 
oppression  elsew^here.  To  invite  the  extension  of  these 
laws  over  any  portion  of  the  colony,  was  to  defeat  the  pur- 
pose of  its  settlement,  and  was,  virtually,  a  violation  of  the 
covenant  which  the  settlers  had  subscribed. 

But  if  these  individuals  had  possessed  the  right  to  yield 
allegiance  to  Massachusetts,  their  surrender  could  not 
bind  their  fellow-citizens,  and  give  to  Massachusetts  any 
claim  to  obedience  from  Mr.  Gorton,  or  any  other  inhabit- 
ant of  Providence.  Yet  Massachusetts  immediately  as- 
sumed a  jurisdiction  over  all  the  inhabitants  of  Provi- 
dence. In  October,  the  Governor  and  three  of  the  assist- 
ants signed  a  warrant,  requiring  them  to  submit  to  Massa- 
chusetts ;*  and  commanding  Mr.  Gorton  and  his  friends  to 
come  to  Boston,  to  answer  to  the  complaints  of  Mr.  Ar- 
nold and  his  associates.  To  this  summons  a  reply  was  re- 
turned, dated  November  20,  and  signed  by  Mr.  Gorton  and 
eleven  other  persons,  in  which  they  denied  the  authority 
of  Massachusetts,  and  refused  to  obey.t  This  answer  is 
said  to  have  been  long,  mystical,  and  contemptuous ;  but 
the  principle,  which  it  maintained,  was,  indisputably, 
sound. 

*  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  113. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  120.  These  persons  were  Samuel  Gorton, 
Randal  Holden,  Robert  Potter,  John  Wickes,  John  Warner,  Richard 
Waterman,  William  Woodale,  John  Greene,  Francis  Weston,  Rich- 
ard Carder,  Nicholas  Power,  and  Sampson  Shatton. 


186  MEMOIR     OF 

Mr.  Gorton,  and  his  eleven  friends,  thought  it  prudent 
to  remove  from  Providence.  They  accordingly  crossed 
the  Pawtuxet  river,  the  southern  boundary  of  the  territory 
purchased  by  Mr.  Williams.  They  obtained  from  Mianti- 
nomo  the  cession  of  a  tract  of  country,  called  Shawomet, 
afterwards  named  Warwick,  for  which  they  paid  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-four  fathoms  of  wampum.*  Here  they 
fixed  their  residence  ;  but,  if  the  object  of  their  removal 
was  to  escape  the  grasp  of  Massachusetts,  they  fared  like 
many  others,  who  have  fled  from  apparent  into  real  danger. 
Two  Indian  sachems,  Pomham  and  Sochonocho,  who  lived 
at  Shawomet  and  Pawtuxet,  claimed  the  territory  as  their 
own,  and  went  to  Boston,  in  June,  1643,  where  they  com- 
plained of  Mr.  Gorton  and  his  friends,  as  having  taken 
their  lands  from  them.  These  sachems  then  made  a  sur- 
render of  themselves,  and  of  the  lands  which  they  claimed, 
to  Massachusetts,  and  promised  fidelity,  for  themselves  and 
their  descendants. 

It  appears,  however,  that  Miantinomo,  as  the  greatest 
and  most  powerful  sachem,  claimed  the  right  to  dispose  of 
the  laud.t  Pomham  himself  had  signed  the  deed  ;  and  he 
and  Sochonocho,  as  subordinate  sachems,  seem  to  have 
had  no  authority  to  dispute  the  validity  of  the  sale,  or  to 
cede  the  territory  to  Massachusetts.  Roger  Williams,  the 
best  authority  on  a  question  touching  the  usages  of  the  In- 
dians, says,  in  a  letter  written  several  years  afterwards,  to 
the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  concerning  this 
transaction  :  "  What  was  done  was  according  to  the  law 
and  tenor  of  the  natives,  I  take  it,  in  all  New-England  and 
America,  viz.  that  the  inferior  sachems  and  subjects  shall 
plant  and  remove  at  the  pleasure  of  the  highest  and  su- 
preme sachems ;  and  I  humbly  conceive,  that  it  pleaseth 
the  Most  High  and  Only  Wise  to  make  use  of  such  a  bond 
of  authority  over  them,  without  which  they  could  not  long 
subsist  in  human  societies,  in  this  wild  condition  wherein 
they  are," 

^  This  Slim,  at  5s.  8d.  per  fathom,  was  401.  16s.  The  deed  was 
dated  January  12,  1C42-3.     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  120. 

t  Miantinomo  was  summoned  to  Boston,  where  he  asserted  his 
claim,  but  his  arguments  were  not  satisfactory  to  the  Court.  It  was 
not  convenient  to  admit  his  pretensions  ;  and  the  Court  were,  we  may 
suppose,  scrupulous  in  examining  his  proofs. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  187 

These  facts  must  be  deemed  a  sufficient  proof,  that  Mr. 
Gorton  and  his  friends  had  a  fair  title  to  the  lands,  or,  at 
least,  that  they  must  be  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  de- 
frauding the  inferior  sachems.  But  Massachusetts  was 
not  destitute  of  the  inclination,  which  all  states  have  usually 
possessed,  to  extend  her  authority.  The  submission  of 
these  sachems  gave  her  a  plausible  pretext ;  and  her  rulers 
again  summoned  Gorton  and  his  friends  to  appear  at  Bos- 
ton, informing  them  that  they  were  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  Massachusetts.  They  again  refused  ;  and  an  armed 
force  of  forty  men  w^as  sent  to  Shawomet,  w^ho  seized  Mr. 
Gorton  and  ten  of  his  friends,  and  carried  them  to  Boston, 
where  they  were  imprisoned.  Their  cattle  were  carried 
av/ay  with  them,  their  property  otherwise  injured  or  seized, 
and  their  families  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  Indians. 

At  Boston,  they  were  tried  for  their  lives,  not  for  any 
specific  civil  crime,  but  on  the  general  charge  of  being 
enemies  to  true  religion,  and  to  civil  authority.  They  were 
saved  from  death,  by  a  majority,  it  is  said,  of  two  votes 
only.  They  were,  nevertheless,  sentenced  to  a  severe  pun- 
ishment. Mr.  Gorton  was  ordered  to  be  confined  at 
Charlestowm,  and  the  others  in  different  towns.  Each  was 
compelled  to  wear  an  iron  chain,  fast  bolted  round  the  leg, 
and  in  this  manner  to  labor.  If  they  spoke  to  any  person, 
except  an  officer  of  church  or  state,  they  were  to  suffer 
death.  They  w^ere  kept  at  labor  during  the  w^inter,  and 
were  then  banished  from  Massachusetts,  and  from  the  lands 
at  Shawomet,  on  pain  of  death. 

Mr.  Gorton,  and  two  of  his  friends,  afterwards  went  to 
England,  where  they  obtained  an  order  from  the  Earl  of 
Warwick  and  the  other  commissioners  of  the  plantations, 
dated  August  19,  1644,  requiring  Massachusetts  not  to 
molest  the  settlers  at  Shawomet.  Massachusetts  reluctant- 
ly complied,  and  Mr.  Gorton  and  his  followers  occupied 
their  lands  in  quiet.     Mr.  Gorton  lived  to  a  great  age.* 


*'-  Gorton,"  says  Hutchinson,  ("vol.  i.  p.  117)  "published  an  ac- 
count of  his  sufferings.  Mr.  Winslow,  the  agent  for  Massachusetts, 
answered  him.  In  1665,  he  preferred  his  petition  to  the  commis- 
sioners sent  over  by  King  Charles  the  Second,  for  recompense  for 
the  wrongs  done  him  by  Massachusetts,  alleging,  that  besides  his 
other  sufferings,  he  and  his  friends  had  eighty  head  of  cattle  taken 
and  sold.     Massachusetts,  in  their  answer,  chaige  him  with  hereti- 


188  MEMOIR     OF 

We  have  stated  these  proceedings  at  considerable 
length,  because  they  are  connected  with  the  history  of 
Mr.  Williams.  They  exhibit  strongly  the  temper  of  those 
times.  The  conduct  of  Massachusetts  none  will  now  de- 
fend. It  was  a  manifest  usurpation,  and  a  cruel  abuse 
of  power.  It  is  a  profitable  example  of  the  manifold 
evils  of  erecting  the  civil  government  into  a  court  of  in- 
quisition. It  w^as  the  alleged  heresies  and  blasphemies 
of  Mr.  Gorton  and  his  friends,  against  which  the  edge 
of  this  persecution  was  directed  ;  and  these  unhappy 
men  narrowly  escaped  the  fate  which,  a  few  years 
later,  befel  the  Quakers.  The  rulers  and  clergy  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, undoubtedly,  thought  that  they  were  impelled 
by  an  honest  zeal  for  the  purity  of  religion  and  the  glory 
of  God.  Their  conduct  proves,  that  a  being  so  fallible  as 
man,  is  unfit  to  be  intrusted  with  power  over  the  con- 
science. 

It  is  difficult  to  ascertain  the  true  character  and  real 
opinions  of  Mr.  Gorton.  If  the  statements  of  his  oppo- 
nents could  be  safely  received,  we  should  view  him  as  a 
wild  and  turbulent  fimatic.  But  we  have  seen  much  rea- 
son to  distrust  the  representations,  which  writers  of  that 
age  have  furnished  of  Mr.  Gorton,  and  others.  He  was, 
unquestionably,  a  bold,  zealous,  eloquent  man,  of  consid- 
erable talents  and  learning,  and  easily  exasperated,  by  op- 
position, to  stubborn  and  contumacious  resistance.  He 
possessed  the  art  of  securing  the  firm  attachment  of  his 
friends  ;  a  proof  that  he  possessed  some  virtues,  besides 
consistency  of  character.  A  competent  authority,  quoted 
in  a  preceding  page,  has  testified  to  the  general  purity  of 
his  morals,  and  to  the  high  estimation  in  which  he  was  held 


cal  tenets,  both  in  religion  and  civil  government,  and  with  an  un- 
just possession  of  the  Indian  lands  in  the  vicinity  of  the  colonies, 
for  the  sake  of  disturbing  their  peace  ;  and  add,  that  the  goods  which 
they  seized  did  not  amount  to  the  charge  of  their  prosecution ;  but 
they  do  not  sufficiently  vindicate  their  seizing  their  persons  or  goods, 
without  the  limits  of  their  jurisdiction,  and  conclude  with  hoping 
that  his  Majesty  will  excuse  any  circumstantial  error  in  their  pro- 
ceedings." In  the  appendix  of  Hutchinson's  first  volume,  is  a  De- 
fence by  Gorton,  dated  Warwick,  June  30,  1669,  and  addressed  to 
Nathaniel  Morton,  in  which  the  charges  in  the  Memorial  are  dis- 
cussed with  an  ability,  which  shows  that  Gorton  could  write,  when 
he  chose,  clearly  and  forcibly. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  189 

by  his  fellow-citizens,  as  indicated  by  the  fact,  that,  "  from 
the  first  establishment  of  government,  he  was  almost  con- 
stantly in  office."  As  to  his  religious  opinions,  it  is  affirm- 
ed, by  the  same  authority,  that  "  he  spiritualized  every 
thing,  and  one  would  almost  have  thought  that  he  had 
taken  the  tour  of  Swedenborg."* 

It  is  certain  that  Roger  Williams  disapproved  Mr.  Gor- 
ton's religious  opinions,  but  did  not  consider  them  as  dan- 
gerous, or  as  impairing  his  civil  rights. t 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  53,  note. 

t  A  gentleman  of  Providence,  William  R.  Staples,  Esq.  has  been 
engaged,  for  some  time,  in  preparing  a  revised  edition  of  Gorton's 
work,  entitled  ''  Simplicity's  Defence  against  Seven  Headed  Poli- 
cy," with  extensive  notes  and  appendices.  This  book,  it  is  hoped, 
will  soon  be  published,  and  will  furnish  the  means  of  forming  a  cor- 
rect opinion  concerning  Gorton,  and  the  transactions  in  which  he 
was  a  party  and  a  sufferer. 


17 


190  ^MEMOIR    OF 


CHAPTER  XV. 


Birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  second  son — league  of  the  colonies — war  be- 
tween the  Narragansets  and  Mohegans — capture  and  death  of 
Miantinomo — Mr.  Williams  embarks  for  England. 

We  have,  in  the  account  of  Mr.  Gorton,  advanced  be- 
yond other  events  which  claim  a  notice. 

Mr.  Williams'  second  son,  Daniel,  was  born  February 
13,  1642. 

The  colonists  were  alarmed,  in  1642,  by  reports  of  a 
meditated  design,  among  the  Indians,  of  a  general  war. 
The  natives  began  to  acquire  the  use  of  fire-arms,  with 
which,  together  with  ammunition,  they  were  supplied  by 
English  and  Dutch  traders.  Vigorous  measures  of  defence 
were  accordingly  adopted  in  the  colonies.  Connecticut 
proposed  to  attack  the  Indians,  but  Massachusetts  refused 
to  join  in  the  war,  on  the  ground  that  there  was  not  suffi- 
cient proof  of  hostile  designs  on  the  part  of  the  Indians. 
She,  nevertheless,  disarmed  the  natives  within  her  limits. 
Miantinomo  came  to  Boston,  and  protested  that  he  was 
innocent. 

The  year  1643  was  made  memorable  in  the  history 
of  New-England,  by  the  union  of  the  colonies.  On  the 
19th  of  May,  articles  of  confederation  were  signed,  at  Bos- 
ton, by  the  Commissioners  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut, 
New-Haven  and  Plymouth,  by  which  these  four  colonies 
formed  a  league,  under  the  name  of  "  the  United  Colonies 
of  New-England."  The  preface  to  the  articles  explains 
the  objects  of  the  confederation  : 

"  Whereas  we  all  came  into  these  parts  of  America  with 
one  and  the  same  end  and  aim,  namely,  to  advance  the 
kingdom  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  enjoy  the  liber- 
ties of  the  Gospel  in  purity  with  peace ;  and  whereas,  by 
our  settling,  by  the  wise  providence  of  God,  we  are  further 
dispersed  upon  the  sea-coasts  and  rivers  than  was  at  first 
intended,  so  that  we  cannot,  according  to  our  desire,  with 
convenience  communicate  in  one  government  and  juris- 
diction, and  whereas  we  live  encompassed  with  people  of 


ROaER     WILLIAMS.  191 

several  nations  and  strange  languages,  which  hereafter 
may  prove  injurious  to  us  or  our  posterity  ;  and  forasmuch 
as  the  natives  have  formerly  committed  sundry  insolences 
and  outrages  upon  several  plantations  of  the  English,  and 
have  of  late  combined  themselves  against  us ;  and  seeing, 
by  reason  of  the  sad  distractions  in  England,  (which  they 
have  heard  of)  and  by  which  they  know  we  are  hindered 
both  from  that  humble  way  of  seeking  advice  and  reaping 
those  comfortable  fruits  of  protection,  which,  at  other  times, 
we  might  well  expect ;  we,  therefore,  do  conceive  it  our 
bounden  duty,  without  delay,  to  enter  into  a  present  con- 
sociation among  ourselves,  for  mutual  help  and  strength  in 
all  future  concernment,  that,  "as  in  nation  and  religion,  so 
in  other  respects,  we  be  and  continue  one."* 

By  the  articles,  it  was  stipulated,  that  two  commission- 
ers from  each  of  the  colonies  should  be  chosen,  to  meet 
annually,  at  Boston,  Hartford,  New-Haven  and  Plymouth, 
in  successive  years,  and  that  this  Congress  should  deter- 
mine questions  of  peace  or  war,  and  consult  for  the  gen- 
eral welfare  of  the  colonies.  This  league  continued  till 
the  year  1686.  It  had  a  beneficial  effect,  and  was  proba- 
bly the  germ  from  which  sprung  the  confederation,  and 
the  subsequent  union  of  the  States,  under  our  present  happy 
government.  Rhode-Island  was  never  allowed  the  honor 
of  an  admission  into  the  New-England  confederacy.  The 
want  of  a  charter  was,  at  first,  the  pretext ;  but  when  the 
charter  was  obtained,  there  was  no  more  disposition  maa 
before  to  forgive  this  offending  sister,  and  admit  her  to  the 
privileges  of  the  family  compact.  The  second  charter 
itself  was  offensive  to  the  other  colonies,  for  it  recognised, 
as  a  fundamental  principle,  "  a  full  liberty  in  religious  con- 
cernments." The  exclusion  of  Rhode-Island  from  the 
confederacy  exposed  her  to  many  inconveniences  and 
dangers.  She  was  left  without  defence,  except  by  her  own 
citizens,  and  a  law  of  the  New-England  Congress  virtually 
forbad  her  to  purchase  arms  and  ammunition  for  her  own 
protection.  But  the  influence  of  Mr.  Williams  among  the 
Indians  preserved  the  colony  from  perils,  to  which  the  in- 
exorable aversion  of  her  sister  colonies  had  abandoned  her. 
It  was   happy  for  those  colonies,  that  their  conduct  met 

*  Winthropj  vol.  ii.  p.  101. 


192  MEMOIR     OF 

with  no  retaliation,  but  that  Mr.  Williams  and  his  colony 
steadily  employed  their  influence  to  appease  the  ire  of  the 
savages,  and  to  protect  their  countrymen. 

A  war  soon  commenced  between  Miantinomo  and  Un- 
cas,  the  Mohegan  sachem.  In  1637,  Miantinomo  made 
an  agreement  with  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  not 
to  fight,  without  their  consent,  with  any  of  the  Indians, 
and  particularly  not  to  invade  Uncas.  In  the  next  year, 
there  was  a  tripartite  agreement  made  at  Hartford,  be- 
tween Miantinomo,  Uncas  and  the  English,  in  which  it 
was  stipulated,  that  those  sachems  should  not  make  war 
on  each  other,  for  any  alleged  injuries,  without  an  appeal 
to  the  English.  In  the  spring  of  the  year  1643,  an  at- 
tempt, it  was  said,  was  made  to  assassinate  Uncas,  by  a 
Pequod  Indian,  one  of  his  subjects,  and  it  was  suspected 
that  he  was  incited  to  this  act  by  Miantinomo.  Other 
attempts,  it  is  alleged,  were  made  to  take  the  life  of  Uncas, 
and  in  the  same  year,  the  two  sachems  came  to  open  war. 
Miantinomo,  with  one  thousand  Narraganset  warriors,  at- 
tacked Uncas,  in  August,  1643,  but  was  defeated  and 
taken  prisoner,  though  the  force  of  Uncas  was  only  three 
or  four  hundred.  Miantinomo  had  a  coat  of  mail,  or  cors- 
let, with  which,  it  has  been  said,  without  sufficient  proof, 
he  \v?.j  fuiaished  by  Mr.  Gorton.  Uncas  carried  his  pris- 
oners to  Hartford,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Gorton,*  who 
wished  to  save  his  friend,  and  therefore  wrote  to  Uncas, 
threatening  him  with  the  resentment  of  the  English,  if  he 
did  not  .  iirrender  the  captive. 

At  Hartford,  Miantinomo  was  imprisoned,  and  applica- 
tion was  made  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colo- 
nies, at  their  session  at  Boston,  September,  1643,  to  deter- 
mine his  fate.  The  Commissioners  thought,  that  they 
could  neither  release  him  with  safety,  nor  justly  put  him  to 
death.  But  they  called  in  to  their  aid  "five  of  the  most 
judicious  elders,"t  and  these  ministers  of  the  Gospel  soon 
agreed,  that  the  unhappy  chief  ought  to  die.  This  answer 
was  accordingly  returned,  and  Miantinomo  was  delivered 
to  Uncas,  who  carried  him  within  his  own  territories,  and 

*Mr.  Williams  was  absent,  having  sailed  for  England  in  June  or 
July  preceding.  Had  he  been  in  the  country,  he  would  certainly 
have  used  his  influence  in  favor  of  Miantinomo, 

t  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  131. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  193 

there  butchered  him.  The  government  at  Hartford  sent 
twelve  or  fourteen  soldiers  with  Uncas,  as  a  guard  to  pro- 
tect him  from  the  rage  of  the  Narragansets. 

This  transaction  has  been  defended,  on  the  grounds,  that 
Miantinomo  was  at  the  head  of  a  general  conspiracy 
against  the  English,  that  he  had  violated  the  agreement 
made  at  Hartford,  and  that  he  was  of  a  turbulent  spirit. 
Other  charges  were  alleged  against  him ;  but  it  is  not  easy 
to  convince  a  reader  of  the  present  day,  that  the  death  of 
the  sachem  was  either  deserved  or  necessary.  That  the 
ministers  of  the  Gospel  doomed  him  to  death,  while  the 
civilians  could  hesitate,  is  remarkable.  It  is  another  proof 
of  the  danger  of  permitting  the  clerical  and  civil  functions 
to  interfere  with  each  other.  The  clergymen  probably 
treated  the  case  of  Miantinomo  as  a  religious  question. 
These  good  men,  we  may  fear,  were  misled  by  that  pro- 
pensity, to  which  we  have  before  alluded,  to  regard  the 
events  of  Jewish  history  as  authoritative  precedents.  They, 
perhaps,  viewed  Miantinomo  as  a  heathen  conspirator 
against  the  people  of  God,  and  deemed  him  worthy  of  the 
fate  of  Agag.  But  we  turn  away,  with  a  sigh,  from  this 
melancholy  subject,  by  quoting  the  words  of  a  distinguished 
citizen  of  Providence.*  "  This  was  the  end  of  Miantino- 
mo, the  most  potent  Indian  prince  the  people  of  New- 
England  had  ever  any  concern  with ;  and  this  was  the  re- 
ward he  received  for  assisting  them,  seven  years  before,  in 
their  war  with  the  Pequods.  Surely  a  Rhode-Island  man 
m.ay  be  permitted  to  mourn  his  unhappy  fate,  and  drop  a 
tear  on  the  ashes  of  Miantinomo,  who,  with  his  uncle  Ca- 
nonicus,  were  the  best  friends  and  greatest  benefactors  the 
colony  ever  had.  They  kindly  received,  fed  and  protected 
the  first  settlers  of  it,  when  they  were  in  distress,  and  were 
strangers  and  exiles,  and  all  mankind  else  were  their  ene- 
mies ;  and,  by  this  kindness  to  them,  drew  upon  themselves 


*  Gov.  Hopkins'  History  of  Providence,  2  His.  Col.  ix.  202.  See 
note  to  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  133,  where  Mr.  Savage  says :  "  With  pro- 
found regret,  I  am  compelled  to  express  a  suspicion,  that  means 
of  sufficient  influence  would  easily  have  been  found  for  the  security 
of  themselves,  the  pacifying  of  Uncas,  and  the  preservation  of  Mian- 
tinomo, had  he  not  encouraged  the  sale  of  Shawomet  and  Pawtuxet 
to  Gorton  and  his  heterodox  associates." 

17* 


194  MEMOIR     OF 

the  resentment  of  the  neighboring  colonies,  and  hastened 
the  untimely  death  of  the  young  king." 

But  let  us  remember,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  judge  fairly 
of  the  conduct  of  our  fathers.  We  cannot  feel,  as  they 
did,  the  exigencies  of  their  situation.  They  were  weak, 
and  surrounded  with  powerful  tribes,  to  whom  rumor  and 
fear  constantly  attributed  the  design  to  unite  in  a  general 
conspiracy  for  the  destruction  of  the  English.  Miantinomo 
was  suspected,  probably  without  sufficient  evidence,  of  an 
ambitious  purpose  to  be  the  head  of  such  a  league.  The 
colonists,  perhaps,  thought  themselves  justified,  by  the 
right  of  self-preservation,  in  putting  to  death  the  aspiring 
chief,  before  he  could  mature  his  plans,  and  execute  his 
purpose. 

We  must  now  return  to  Mr.  Williams.  The  settlements 
at  Providence  and  on  Rhode-Island  had  continued  to  in- 
crease, for  several  years.  They  had  hitherto  been  distinct, 
but  their  principles  and  interests  were  so  similar,  that  an 
alliance  as  one  colony  became  manifestly  expedient.  The 
necessity  of  a  charter,  from  the  government  of  England, 
was  apparent,  to  protect  them  from  the  encroachments  of  the 
other  colonies,  and  to  give  a  sanction  and  authority  to  their 
government.  A  committee  was  appointed,  at  an  assembly 
in  Newport,  September  19,  1642,  with  instructions  to  pro- 
cure a  charter.  This  committee  intrusted  the  agency  to 
Mr.  Williams,  who,  on  behalf  of  that  colony  and  his  own, 
agreed  to  visit  England  on  this  important  errand.* 

He  accordingly  left  his  family,  and  proceeded  to  Man- 
hattoes,  (New-York)  to  embark  for  England.  It  would 
have  been  more  convenient  and  agreeable  to  sail  from  Bos- 
ton, but  Mr.  Williams  was  not  permitted  to  enter  the  terri- 
tories of  Massachusetts,  notwithstanding  the  good  service 
which  he  had  performed  for  them  in  their  hour  of  need. 
But  at  Manhattoes,  he  had  an  opportunity  to  use  his   influ- 


*  In  his  letter  to  Major  Mason,  Mr.  Williams  says :  "  Upon  fre- 
quent exceptions  against  Providence  men,  that  we  had  no  authority 
for  civil  government,  I  went  purposely  to  England,  and,  upon  my 
report  and  petition,  the  Parliament  granted  us  a  charter  of  govern- 
ment for  these  parts,  so  judged  vacant  on  all  hands.  And  upon  this, 
the  country  about  was  more  friendly,  and  wrote  to  us,  and  treated 
us  as  an  authorized  colony,  only  the  differences  of  our  consciences 
much  obstructed," 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  195 

ence  with  the  savages,  and  to  display  his  pacific  principles. 
A  war  had  been  provoked,  by  the  wanton  cruelty  of  the 
Dutch,  and  the  Indians  assailed  them  with  great  fury. 
They  burnt  several  houses  in  the  neighborhood  of  Manhat- 
toes,  and  killed  several  persons,  among  whom  was  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  with  all  but. one  of  her  family.  The  Indians 
on  Long-Island  engaged  in  the  war,  and  burnt  several  of 
the  Dutchmen's  houses.  They  assaulted  the  dwelling  of 
Lady  Moody,  who  not  long  before  had  left  Salem,  in  con- 
sequence of  her  Baptist  principles.*  Mr.  Williams  imme- 
diately interceded,  and,  by  his  mediation,  the  Indians  were 
pacified,  and  peace  was  restored  between  them  and  the 
Dutch.  This  event,  according  to  Winthrop,  occurred  in 
June,  1643,  and  we  thus  learn  the  date  of  Mr.  Williams' 
first  embarkation  for  England,  which  must  have  taken 
place  soon  after. 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  148.  Winthrop  places  Lady  Moody's  removal 
from  Salem  after  Mr.  Williams'  mediation  with  the  Long-Island  In- 
dians. He  speaks  respectfully  of  her  character  before  her  lapse  into 
the  heresy  of  denying  infant  baptism  :  ''  The  Lady  Moody,  a  wise 
and  anciently  religious  woman,  being  taken  with  the  error  of  deny- 
ing baptism  to  infants,  was  dealt  withal  by  many  of  the  elders  and 
others,  and  admonished  by  the  church  of  Salem,  (whereof  she  was 
a  member)  but  persisting  still,  and  to  avoid  further  trouble,  she  re- 
moved to  the  Dutch,  against  the  advice  of  all  her  friends.  Many 
others,  infected  with  anabaptism,  removed  thither  also.  She  was 
after  excommunicated."     Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  pp.  123-4. 


196  MEMOIR   or 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


Mr.  Williams'  first  visit  to  England — Key  to  the  Indian  languages — 
charter — birth  of  Mr.  Williams'  youngest  child — Bloody  Tenet — 
he  returns  to  America — reception  at  Boston  and  Providence — 
again  aids  in  preventing  an  Indian  war. 

Some  time  during  the  summer  of  1643,  Mr.  Williams 
embarked  at  New- York  for  his  native  land.  A  Dutch  ship 
furnished  him  with  a  conveyance,  which  his  own  country- 
men had  denied  him.  Of  the  length  and  incidents  of  the 
voyage,  we  know  nothing.  The  vessel,  we  may  be  sure, 
did  not  afford  the  sumptuous  accommodations,  nor  pursue 
her  course  over  the  Atlantic  with  the  celerity,  of  the  packet 
ships  of  the  present  day. 

Mr.  Williams  was  not  of  a  mood  to  be  idle,  either  on  the 
land  or  on  the  ocean.  He  acted  on  the  principle,  so  beau- 
tifully expressed  in  one  of  his  books,  "  one  grain  of  time's 
inestimable  sand  is  worth  a  golden  mountain."  He  has 
told  us,  that  he  employed  his  leisure,  during  this  voyage,  in 
preparing  the  materials  of  his  Key  to  the  Indian  languages  : 
"  I  drew  the  materials,  in  a  rude  lump,  at  sea,  as  a  private 
help  to  my  own  memory,  that  I  might  not,  by  my  present 
absence,  lightly  lose  what  I  had  so  dearly  bought  in  some 
few  years'  hardship  and  charges  among  the  barbarians. "^^ 

This  book,  which  is  an  honorable  specimen  of  his  talents 
as  a  writer,  his  industry  and  acuteness  in  collecting  the 
words  and  phrases  of  an  unwritten  language,  and  his  be- 
nevolent zeal  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians,  must  have 
been  nearly  finished  for  the  press  during  the  voyage.  It 
was  printed  before  the  close  of  the  year  1643,  and  we  may 
suppose,  that  after  his  arrival  in  England,  his  endeavors  to 
procure  the  charter,  and  other  engagements,  would  leave 
him  little  leisure  for  writing.  Of  this  book  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  again,  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  in  which 
we  shall  briefly  review  his  literary  character  and  writings. 

Mr.  Williams  arrived  in  England  at  a  most  critical  period. 
A  civil  war  then   convulsed  the  nation.     The  misguided 

*  Key,  p.  17. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  197 

King,  Charles  I.  by  a  series  of  unjustifiable  measures,  re- 
pugnant to  the  constitution,  and  in  violation  of  his  own 
promises  and  oaths,  had  provoked  an  opposition,  which 
issued  in  a  rupture  and  a  bloody  war.  The  King  had  fled 
from  London,  and  Parliament  had  assumed  the  executive 
as  well  as  legislative  authority.  The  King  and  the  Parlia- 
ment levied  troops,  the  sword  was  unsheathed,  and,  after  a 
sanguinary  struggle  of  several  years,  the  unhappy  Charles 
died  on  the  scaffold.  Episcopacy  was  abolished,  the  mon- 
archy was  overturned,  and  a  commonwealth,  under  the 
protectorship  of  Cromwell,  was  established  on  its  ruins. 

Mr.  Williams  arrived  at  an  early  period  in  this  disastrous 
conflict.  Its  issue  was  then  very  doubtful.  The  Episcopal 
clergy,  and  a  large  portion  of  the  aristocracy,  were  on  the 
side  of  the  King.  With  these  were  joined  many  of  the 
quiet  men  of  the  kingdom,  who,  while  they  disapproved  the 
King's  conduct,  were  led  by  a  sentiment  of  loyalty,  arid  a 
hope  that  he  might  be  persuaded  to  a  right  course,  to  rally 
around  the  monarch.  The  patriot  would  have  been  satis- 
fied with  a  guarantee  for  the  rights  of  the  people ;  and  the 
advocates  of  religious  liberty  would  have  been  content  with 
toleration.  But  the  inflexible  obstinacy  and  arbitrary  prin- 
ciples of  the  King  daily  strengthened  his  enemies  and 
alienated  his  friends.  It  soon  became  evident,  that  the 
King  must  yield,  or  the  nation  must  submit  to  slavery.  The 
contest  ended,  as  every  struggle  between  despotism  and 
liberty,  the  rulers  and  the  people,  must,  sooner  or  later, 
terminate  : 

'•  For  Freedom's  battle,  once  begun, 
Bequeath'd  by  bleeding  sire  to  son, 
Though  baffled  oft,  is  ever  won."* 

The  disturbed  condition  of  the  kingdom  was,  in  some 
respects,  favorable  to  the  objects  of  Mr.  Williams.  It  dis- 
posed the  Parliament  to  strengthen  themselves,  by  concil- 
iating the  favor  of  their  brethren  in  America.  The  House 
of  Commons,  in  March,  1642-3,  passed  a  memorable  re- 
solve, in  favor  of  New-England,  exempting  its  imports  and 
exports  from  customs,  subsidy  or  taxation.  In  November, 
1643,  not  long,  we  presume,  after  Mr.  Williams'  arrival, 
Parliament  passed   an  ordinance,   appointing  the  Earl  of 

*  Byron's  Giaour. 


198  MEMOIR     OF 

Warwick  Governor  in  Chief  and  Lord  High  Admira]  of  the 
American  colonies,  with  a  council  of  five  peers  and  twelve 
commoners.  It  empowered  him,  in  conjunction  with  his 
associates,  to  examine  the  state  of  their  affairs,  to  send  for 
papers  and  persons,  to  remove  governors  and  officers,  and 
appoint  others  in  their  places,  and  to  assign  to  these  such 
part  of  the  power  now  granted  as  he  should  think  proper.* 

From  these  commissioners  Mr.  Williams  easily  obtained, 
by  the  aid  of  Sir  Henry  Vane,  one  of  their  number,  a  char- 
ter for  the  colony  of  Rhode-Island,  dated  March  14, 1643-4, 
in  which  the  most  ample  powers  were  granted  to  the  in- 
habitants to  form  and  maintain  a   civil  government. t 

During  Mr.  Williams'  absence,  his  youngest  child,  Jo- 
seph, was  born,  in  December,  1643,  according  to  Backus, 
though  his  tombstone,  now  standing  in  the  family  grave- 
yard, in  Cranston,  (R,  I.)  bears  an  inscription,  which 
states  that  he  was  born  in  1644. 

While  in  England,  Mr.  Williams,  notwithstanding  the 
pressure  of  his  duties,  and  the  disturbed  state  of  the  public 
mind,  found  leisure  to  prepare  for  the  press  his  celebrated 
book,  entitled  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  of  Persecution  for  Cause 
of  Conscience,  discussed  in  a  conference  between  Truth 
and  Peace,  who,  in  all  tender  affection,  present  to  the 
High  Court  of  Parliament,  as  the  result  of  their  discourse, 
these  amongst  other  passages  of  highest  consideration." 
In  this  book,  which  he  dedicated  to  Parliament,  and  which 
was  doubtless  read,  with  interest  and  profit,  by  many  of  the 
leading  men  in  England, |  Mr.  Williams  discusses  the 
great  principles  of  religious  liberty,  in  answer  to  a  letter  of 
the  Rev.  John  Cotton.  Mr.  Cotton  wrote  a  reply,  to  which, 
in  accordance  with  the  humor  of  those  times,  he  gave  the 
quaint  and  punning  title  of  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  Washed, 
and  made  White  in  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb."  Mr.  Wil- 
liams published  a  rejoinder,  with  a  title  in  the  same  strain, 
"  The  Bloody  Tenet  yet  more  Bloody,  by  Mr.  Cotton's 
Endeavor  to  Wash  it  White."  Of  these  books  we  shall 
give  some  account,  in  a  subsequent  chapter.     It  may  suffice 

*  Holmes'  Annals,  vol,  i.  p.  273. 

t  For  a  copy  of  the  charter,  see  Appendix  E. 

I  The  Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines,  who  were  then  in  ses- 
sion, might  have  learned  from  this  book,  if  they  had  read  it,  lessors 
which  they  greatly  needed. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  199 

now,  to  say,  that  Mr.  Cotton's  argument  rests  on  a  sophis- 
tical distinction  between  persecution  for  religious  opinions, 
and  punishment  for  maintaining  errors.  He  disclaims  the 
right  to  "  persecute  any  for  conscience  rightly  informed ;" 
but  if  a  man  possesses  "  an  erroneous  and  blind  conscience, 
in  fundamental  and  weighty  points,"  he  ought,  after  suita- 
ble admonition,  to  be  punished  by  the  civil  magistrate,  not 
because  he  entertains  heretical  principles,  but  because  he 
is  wilfully  blind  and  criminally  obstinate,  in  refusing  to 
believe  Avhat  is  clearly  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.  It 
seems  surprising,  that  a  man  of  Mr.  Cotton's  abilities  and 
virtues,  could  seriously  maintain  so  transparent  an  absur- 
dity ;  for  if  the  magistrate  be  allowed  to  judge  what  is  "  an 
erroneous  and  blind  conscience,"  he  will  decide  according 
to  his  own  construction  of  the  word  of  God,  and  will  pro- 
nounce all  who  differ  from  himself  to  be  culpably  obstinate, 
and  worthy  of  punishment.  This  is  precisely  the  case  in 
every  instance  of  persecution ;  and  the  Court  of  High 
Commission,  who  expelled  Mr.  Cotton  from  England, 
would  have  needed  no  other  defence  of  their  conduct  than 
his  own  arguments.  But  Mr.  Cotton,  though  a  great  and 
a  good  man,  was  misled  by  his  views  of  the  duty  of  the 
civil  magistrate  to  interfere,  for  the  preservation  of  purity 
in  the  Christian  church,  as  the  civil  authorities  were  re- 
quired to  guard  the  Jewish  religion,  and  to  smite,  with 
unsparing  severity,  those  who  renounced  or  corrupted  it. 

Mr.  Williams,  in  his  book,  exposes  the  fallacy  of  Mr. 
Cotton's  arguments ;  and  by  cogent  reasoning  and  acute 
expositions  of  various  texts,  he  establishes  this  fundamental 
principle,  as  alike  taught  by  the  Scriptures  and  by  reason, 
that  men  are  not  responsible  to  each  other  for  their  re- 
ligious opinions,  and  ought  not  to  suffer  molestation,  or  in- 
jury, in  their  persons  or  property,  for  those  opinions,  nor  for 
the  actions  by  which  they  are  expressed  and  maintained, 
unless  the  civil  peace  is  disturbed.  In  this  case,  their 
conduct  ceases  to  be  a  matter  of  religious  concern  merely, 
and  comes  within  the  cognizance  of  the  civil  magistrate. 
Mr.  Williams  is  very  clear  and  decided  on  this  point. 
Though  he  was  accused  as  a  turbulent  contemner  of  mag- 
istracy and  civil  order,  yet  in  this  book,  printed  within 
a  few  years  after  his  banishment,  he  says,  "  I  speak  not 
of  scandals  against  the  civil  state,  which  the  civil  state 


200  MEMOIR     OF 

ought  to  punish*  This  book  is  written  with  great  ability^ 
it  shows  learning  and  taste,  and  it  breathes  a  tone  of  cour- 
tesy which  was  not  common  at  that  time,  and  which  would 
not  dishonor  this  age. 

Mr.  Williams  returned  to  America,  in  the  autumn  of 
1644.  He  landed  at  Boston,  September  17.  He  was  em- 
boldened to  venture  on  this  forbidden  ground,  by  the  fol- 
lowing  letter  from  severaLnoblemen  and  other  members  of 
Parliament,  addressed  "  To  the  Right  Worshipful  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Assistants,  and  the  rest  of  our  worthy  friends  in 
the  plantation  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New-England  :" 

''  Our  much  honored  friends  : 
''  Taking  notice  some  of  us  of  long  time  of  Mr,  Roger 
Williams'  good  affections  and  conscience,  and  of  his  suffer- 
ings by  our  common  enemy  and  oppressors  of  God's  people, 
the  prelates,  as  also  of  his  great  industry  and  travels  in  his 
printed  Indian  labors,  in  your  parts,  (the  like  whereof  we 
have  not  seen  extant  from  any  part  of  America)  and  in 
which  respect  it  hath  pleased  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
to  grant  unto  him,  and  friends  with  him,  a  free  and  abso- 
lute charter  of  civil  government  for  those  parts  of  his  abode, 
and  withal  sorrowfully  resenting,  that  amongst  good  men 
(our  friends)  driven  to  the  ends  of  the  world,  exercised 
with  the  trials  of  a  wilderness,  and  who  mutually  give  good 
testimony,  each  of  the  other,  (as  we  observe  you  do  of  him, 
and  he  abundantly  of  you,)  there  should  be  such  a  distance  ; 
we  thought  it  fit,  upon  divers  considerations,  to  profess  our 
great  desires  of  both  your  utmost  endeavors  of  nearer 
closing  and  of  ready  expressing  those  good  affections, 
(which  we  perceive  you  bear  to  each  other)  in  effectual 
performance  of  all  friendly  offices.  The  rather  because  of 
those  bad  neighbors  you  are  likely  to  find  too  near  you  in 
Virginia,  and  the  unfriendly  visits  from  the  west  of  Eng- 
land and  from  Ireland.  That  howsoever  it  may  please  the 
Most  High  to  shake  our  foundations,  yet  the  report  of  your 
peaceable  and  prosperous  plantations  may  be  some  refresh- 
ings to  your  true  and  faithful  friends." 

This  letter  procured  for  Mr.  Williams  permission  to  pro«= 
ceed  unmolested  to  Providence,  but  it  produced  no  relaxa- 

•^  Bloody  Tenet,  p.  Q^, 


ROGER     WILL  I  A  MS.  201 

t'lon  of  the  policy  of  Massachusetts  towards  him.  Mr. 
Hubbard  (p.  349)  says  :  '*  Upon  the  receipt  of  the  said  letter, 
the  Governor  and  magistrates  of  the  Massachusetts  found, 
upon  examination  of  their  hearts,  they  saw  no  reason  to 
condemn  themselves  for  any  former  proceedings  against 
Mr.  Williams;  but  for  any  offices  of  Christian  love,  and 
duties  of  humanity,  they  were  very  willing  to  maintain  a 
mutual  correspondency  with  him.  But  as  to  his  dangerous 
principles  of  separation,  unless  he  can  be  brought  to  lay 
them  down,  they  see  no  reason  why  to  concede  to  him,  or 
any  so  persuaded,  free  liberty  of  ingress  and  egress,  lest 
any  of  their  people  should  be  drawn  away  with  his  erro- 
neous opinions."  The  aversion  to  Mr.  Williams'  princi- 
ples, both  religious*  and  political,  was  not  abated  by  his 
return  with  a  charter,  which  invested  the  heretical  colony 
with  the  dignity  of  an  independent  government,  and  armed 

*  Massachusetts  was  the  more  disinclined  to  show  favor  to  Mr. 
Williams  and  his  colonj,  because  the  Baptists  began  to  multiply. 
A  Baptist  church  was  formed  about  this  time,  in  Newport,  by  Dr. 
John  Clarke  and  a  few  others,  and  in  Massachusetts  itself  the  new 
doctrine  spread.  The  General  Court  was  aroused,  therefore,  to  an 
effort  to  crush  the  growing  sect ;  and  no  method  seemed  to  promise 
more  success,  than  to  wield  against  it  a  legislative  denunciation, 
edged  by  an  appeal  to  the  popular  dread  of  anabaptism : 

"  Immortale  odium,  et  nunquam  sanabile  vulnus." 

They  accordingly  passed  the  following  act,  in  November,  1644  : 

*'  Forasmuch  as  experience  hath  plentifully  and  often  proved,  that 
since  the  first  rising  of  the  Anabaptists,  about  one  hundred  years 
since,  they  have  been  the  incendiaries  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
the  infectors  of  persons  in  main  matters  of  religion,  and  the  troublers 
of  churches  in  all  places  where  they  have  been,  and  that  they  who  have 
held  the  baptizing  of  infants  unlawful,  have  usually  held  other  errors 
or  heresies  therewith,  though  they  have  (as  other  heretics  use  to  do) 
concealed  the  same  till  they  spied  out  a  fit  advantage  and  opportunity 
to  vent  them,  by  way  of  question  or  scruple ;  and  whereas  divers  of 
this  kind  have,  since  our  coming  into  New-England,  appeared 
amongst  ourselves,  some  whereof  (as  others  before  them)  denied  the 
ordinance  of  magistracy,  and  the  lawfulness  of  making  war,  and 
others  the  lawfulness  of  magistrates,  and  their  inspection  into  any 
breach  of  the  first  table  ;  which  opinions,  if  they  should  be  connived 
at  by  us,  are  like  to  be  increased  amongst  us,  and  so  must  necessa- 
rily bring  guilt  upon  us,  infection  and  trouble  to  the  churches,  and 
hazard  to  the  whole  commonwealth  ;  it  is  ordered  and  agreed,  that, 
if  any  person  or  persons,  within  this  jurisdiction,  shall  either  openly 
condemn  or  oppose  the  baptizing  of  infants,  or  go  about  secretly  to 
seduce  others  from  the  approbation  or  use  thereof,  or  shall  purposely 

18 


202  M  E  M  O  I  R     CF 

her  with  the  shield  of  the  parent  state.  Her  example  Be- 
came, thenceforth,  more  dangerous ;  and  the  united  colo- 
nies steadily  pursued  towards  her  an  unfriendly  policy. 

Mr.  Williams'  return  to  Providence  was  greeted  by  a 
voluntary  expression  of  the  attachment  and  gratitude  of  its 
inhabitants,  which  is  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  testimo- 
nies to  his  character.  They  met  him  at  Seekonk,  with 
fourteen  canoes,  and  carried  him  across  the  river  to  Provi- 
dence. This  simple  act  of  respect  must  have  been  highly 
grateful  to  his  feelings.  It  does  equal  honor  to  him,  and 
to  his  fellow  citizens,  who  thus  showed  themselves  capable 
of  estimating,  in  a  manner  worthy  of  freemen,  the  services 
of  a  friend  and  public  benefactor.* 

We  may  suppose,  that  Mr.  Williams,  after  his  return, 
immediately  endeavored  to  carry  into  operation  the  charter 
which  he  had  procured  with  so  much  labor  and  expense. 
But  it  was  a  work  which  required  time,  to  bring  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  several  settlements  at  Providence,  Newport, 
Portsmouth  and  Warwick,  to  agree  on  a  form  of  govern- 
ment, and  unite  as  one  colony.  The  charter  prescribed 
no  form  of  civil  polity,  and  it  was  accordingly  necessary  to 
manage  the  negotiations  between  the  towns  with  much 
delicacy  and  skill. 

In  the  mean  time,  Mr.  Williams  had  another  opportunity 
to  interpose  his  beneficent  agency  in  favor  of  the  colonists. 
The  Narraganset  Indians,  exasperated  by  what  they  judged 
to  be  the  murder  of  their  favorite  sachem,  Miantinomo, 
were  bent  on  vengeance,  with  the  unrelenting  ferocity  of" 
savages.     They  alleged,  that  they  had  paid  wampum,  to 

depart  the  congregation  at  the  ministration  of  the  ordinance,  or  shall 
deny  the  ordinance  of  magistracy,  or  their  lawful  right  and  authority 
to  make  war,  or  to  punish  the  outWard  breaches  of  the  first  table, 
and  shall  appear  to  the  Court  wilfully  and  obstinately  to  continue 
therein,  after  due  time  and  means  of  conviction,  every  such  person 
or  persons  shall  be  sentenced  to  haiiishment.''  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  150. 
*  This  incident  is  related  by  Richard  Scott,  in  his  letter,  inserted 
at  the  close  of  the  "  New-England  Firebrand  Quenched."  Mr. 
Scott  disliked  Mr.  Williams,  and  his  comment  on  the  transaction 
referred  to  is  an  instance  of  the  effect  of  a  man's  feelings  on  his 
judgment  respecting  the  conduct  of  others.  "  The  man,"  he  says, 
"  being  hemmed  in,  in  the  middle  of  the  canoes,  was  so  elevated  and 
transported  out  of  himself,  that  I  was  condemned  in  myself,  that 
amongst  the  rest,  I  had  been  an  instrument  to  set  him  up  in  his  pride 
and  folly." 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  203 

tlie  amount  of  forty  pounds,  as  a  ransom  for  the  chieftain's 
life.  They  therefore  resolved  on  war  with  the  Mohegans, 
until  they  should  obtain  the  head  of  Uncas.  The  commis- 
sioners of  the  colonies,  at  their  meeting  in  Hartford,  in 
September,  1644,  appeased  their  animosity  for  a  while,  the 
Narraganset  sachems  promising  not  to  commence  hostili- 
ties against  Uncas  until  after  the  next  planting  time,  and 
likewise  after  thirty  days'  notice  to  the  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Connecticut. 

The  commissioners,  this  year,  passed  an  act,  forbidding 
any  person  to  sell  any  kind  of  arms  or  ammunition  to  an 
Indian,  or  to  repair  any  weapon  for  him,  under  a  heavy 
penalty.  This  measure  was  called  for  by  the  rapid  pro- 
gress of  the  Indians  in  the  use  of  fire-arms.  The  law  had, 
it  is  probable,  some  effect,  but  like  similar  laws  in  regard 
to  the  Indians,  in  later  times,  unprincipled  men  found  many 
ways  to  evade  it. 

The  Narragansets  soon  commenced  the  war,  and  killed 
several  of  the  Mohegans.  An  extraordinary  meeting  of 
the  commissioners  was  held  in  Boston,  in  July,  1645,  when 
it  was  judged  necessary  to  send  messengers  to  the  sachems 
of  the  Narragansets  and  Mohegans,  requiring  them  to  sus- 
pend hostilities  and  come  to  Boston.  The  messengers 
were  informed  by  the  Narragansets,  that  they  were  re- 
solved on  war.  They  accordingly  returned  to  Boston,  with 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Williams,  informing  the  government, 
that  the  Narragansets  would  soon  commence  hostilities 
against  the  colonists,  except  at  Providence  and  Rhode- 
Island,  the  Indians  having,  from  regard  to  Mr.  Williams, 
agreed  to  maintain  a  neutrality  with  these  settlements. 

The  commissioners  immediately  resolved  to  raise  a  force 
of  three  hundred  men,*  to  march  immediately  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Mohegans.  A  part  of  the  levy  from  Massa- 
chusetts marched  accordingly.  Two  messengers  were 
again  sent  to  the  Narraganset  sachems,  with  directions  to 
take  Mr.  Benedict  Arnold  with  them  as  their  interpreter. 
But  they  could  not  find  Mr.  Arnold  at  Providence,  and 
learned  that  he  dared  not  venture  among  the  Indians  with- 
out a  guard.     But  Mr.  Williams  had  been  sent  for   by  the 


*  From  iMassachusetts,  190;  Plymouth,  40  ;  Connecticut^  40  ;  New- 
Hayen,  30, 


204  MEMOIR     OF 

sachems,  doubtless  to  advise  them  in  this  crisis.  The  mes- 
sengers, therefore,  solicited  his  aid,  and  he  served  them  as 
an  interpreter.  By  his  mediation,  Passacus,*  the  sachem, 
and  other  chief  men,  were  persuaded  to  go  to  Boston, 
where  a  treaty  was  concluded  between  the  commissioners 
and  the  sachems,  by  which  the  latter  agreed  to  make  peace 
with  Uncas,  and  to  pay  the  colonists  two  thousand  fathoms 
of  wampum,  at  different  times,  as  a  remuneration  for  their 
expenses  in  the  war.  This  treaty  was  concluded  in  Au- 
gust, 1645,  and  the  sachems  left  a  child  of  Passacus,  a 
child  of  his  brother,  and  two  other  children  of  persons  of 
note,  as  a  security  for  the  faithful  performance  of  the 
treaty.! 

*  He  was  a  brother  of  Miantinomo,  and  succeeded  him. 

f  The  following  note,  in  Hutchinson,  vcl.  i.  p.  134,  may  be  prop- 
erly quoted  here : 

"  Uncas,  the  sachem  of  the  Mohegans,  was  hated  and  envied  by 
the  Narragansets,  for  his  attachment  to  the  English,  and  the  distin- 
guishing favors  shown  him  in  return.  In  1638,  having  entertained 
some  of  the  Pequods,  after  the  war  with  them,  and  fearing  he  had 
given  offence,  he  came  to  the  Governor  at  Boston,  and  brought  a 
present,  which  was  at  first  refused,  but  afterwards, -the  Governor 
being  satisfied  that  he  had  no  designs  against  the  English,  it  was 
accepted,  and  he  promised  to  submit  to  such  orders  as  he  should  re- 
ceive from  the  English,  concerning  the  Pequods,  and  also  concern- 
ing the  Narragansets,  and  his  behavior  towards  them,  and  con- 
cluded his  speech  with  these  words :  '  This  heart  (laying  his  hand 
upon  his  breast)  is  not  mine,  but  yours.  Command  me  any  difficult 
service,  and  I  will  do  it;  I  have  no  men,  but  they  are  all  yciirs.  I 
will  never  believe  any  Indian  against  the  English  any  more.'  He 
was  dismissed,  wiUi  a  present,  went  home  joyful,  carrying  a  letter 
of  protection  for  himself  and  men  through  the  English  plantations, 
and  never  was  engaged  in  hostilities  against  any  of  the  colonies, 
although  he  survived  Philip's  war,  and  died  a  very  old  man,  after 
the  year  1680. 

''  The  Narragansets  failed  in  the  payment  of  the  wampum,  and  in 
1646,  messengers  were  sent  to  them  from  the  commissioners,  but 
Passacus,  their  chief  sachem,  not  attending,  in  1647  the  message 
was  repeated,  and  he  then  pretended  sickness,  and  sent  Ninigret, 
a  sachem  of  the  Nianticks,  to  act  in  his  behalf,  and  told  the  messen- 
ger, that  it  was  true  he  had  not  kept  his  covenant,  but  added,  that  he 
entered  into  it  for  fear  of  the  army  which  he  saw,  and  that  he  was 
told,  that  if  he  did  not  set  his  hand  to  such  and  such  things,  the 
army  should  go  against  the  Narragansets.  When  Ninigret  appeared, 
he  asked  how  the  Narragansets  became  indebted  to  the  English  in 
so  large  a  sum,  and  being  told  that  it  was  for  the  expense  the  Nar- 
ragansets had  put  them  to  by  their  breach  of  covenant,  lie  then 
pleaded  poverty,  but  the  commissioners  insisting  on  the  demand ,  he 


nOGfiR     WILLIAMS.  205 

Thus  was  New-England  saved,  a  second  time,  from  a 
general  Indian  war,  by  means,  in  no  small  part,  of  the 
good  offices  of  Mr.  Williams.  The  small  English  army 
was  disbanded,  and  the  4th  of  September  was  observed,  by 
the  colonists,  as  a  day  of  thanksgiving  to  God.  This 
measure  was  worthy  of  our  pious  ancestors.  We  may  hope, 
that  while  they  justly  ascribed  the  praise  of  their  deliver- 
ance to  God,  they  felt  some  emotions  of  gratitude  towards 
their  exiled  benefactor. 

sent  some  of  his  people  back  to  procure  What  he  could,  but  brought 
two  hundred  fathoms  only.  They  gave  him  leave  to  go  home,  and 
allov/ed  him  farther  time ,  The  whole  was  not  paid  until  1650,  when 
Capt.  Atherton,  with  twenty  men,  was  sent  to  demand  the  arrears, 
which  was  then  about  three  hundred  fathoms.  Passacus  put  him  off 
some  time  with  dilatorj'^  answers,  not  suffering  him  to  come  into  his 
presence.  In  the  mean  while  his  people  were  gathering  together,  but 
the  Captain,  carrying  his  twenty  soldiers  to  the  door  of  the  wigwam, 
entered  himself,  with  his  pistol  in  his  hand,  leaving  his  men  without, 
and  seizing  Passacus  by  the  hair  of  his  head,  drew  him  from  the 
midst  of  a  great  number  of  his  attendants,  threatening  that  if  one  of 
them  offered  to  stir,  he  would  despatch  him.  Passacus  presently 
paid  down  what  was  demanded,  and  the  English  returned  in  safety. 
Ninigret,  after  this,  began  to  stir  up  new  troubles  from  the  Nian- 
ticks,  but  upon  sending  Capt.  Davis,  with  a  troop  of  horse,  into  the 
Indian  country,  he  was  struck  with  a  panic,  and  would  not  be  seen 
bj  the  English  until  he  had  assurance  of  his  life,  and  then  he  readily 
complied  with  their  demands,  and  they  and  the  other  Indians  con- 
tinued quiet  many  years,  until  by  familiar  intercourse,  and  the  use 
of  fire-arms,  they  became  more  emboldened,  and  engaged  in  the  war 
in  1675,  which  issued  in  their  total  destruction.  Records  of  United 
Colonies." 


18^ 


206  M E ]M o  1 K  or 


CHAPTER  XVIl. 


Letters  to  John  Winthrop — organization  of  the  government — vote 
of  money  to  Mr.  Williams — agreement  of  several  inhabitants  of 
Providence — dissentions — Indian  troubles. 

We  have  now  the  pleasure  of  presenting  the  first  of  a 
number  of  unpublished  letters,  addressed  to  John  Win- 
throp,  the  son  of  Governor  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts.* 
Mr.  Winthrop  resided,  for  several  years,  at  Nameug,  or 
Pequod,  now  New-London,  in  Connecticut.  It  appears 
from  one  of  the  letters,  that  Mr.  Williams  became  ac- 
quainted with  him  in  England  ;  and  the  correspondence 
which  we  shall  introduce,  will  show  that  the  friendship  was 
strong  and  mutual.  We  cannot  stay  to  offer  comments  on 
the  letters.  They  relate  to  politics,  literature,  agriculture, 
and  various  other  topics,  while  religion  is  diffused,  like  a 
grateful  fragrance,  through  them  all. 

This  and  other  letters  are  dated  at  Narraganset,  or  Caw* 
cawmqussick,  (now  North-Kingstown,)  where  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, about  this  time,  purchased  an  estate,  and  built  a 
trading  house,  which  he  afterwards  sold,  to  obtain  money 
for  his  second  visit  to  England. 

*'  For  his  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at 
Pequod,  these. 


*  Allen  says  of  him,  in  his  Dictionary,  "  His  fine  genius  was  im- 
proved by  a  liberal  education  in  the  Universities  of  Cambridge  and 
of  Dublin,  and  by  travel  upon  the  continent.  He  arrived  at  Boston, 
in  October,  1635,  with  authority  to  make  a  settlement  in  Connecti- 
cut, and  the  next  month  despatched  a  number  of  persons  to  build  a 
fort  at  Saybrook.  He  was  chosen  Governor  in  1657,  and  again  in 
1659,  and  from  that  period  he  was  annually  re-elected  till  his  death. 
In  1661,  he  went  to  England,  and  procured  a  charter,  incorporating 
Connecticut  and  New-Haven  into  one  colony.  He  died  at  Boston, 
April  5,  1676,  in  the  71st  year  of  his  age.  He  possessed  a  rich  va- 
riety of  knowledge,  and  was  particularly  skilled  in  chemistry  and 
physic.  His  valuable  qualities  as  a  gentleman,  a  christian,  a  philoso- 
pher, and  a  magistrate,  secured  to  him  universal  respect." 


'ROGER    WILLIAMS.  'M 

''  Nar.  22,  4,  45,  (so  called.)* 
''  Sir, 
**  Best  salutations,  &lc.  William  Cheesbrough,  now 
come  in,  shall  be  readily  assisted,  for  yours  and  his 
own  sake.  Major  Bourne  is  come  in.  I  have,  by  Provi- 
dence, seen  divers  papers,  (returning  now  yours  thank- 
fully,) which  are  snatched  from  tne  again.  I  have,  there- 
fore, been  bold  to  send  you  the  Medulla  and  the  Magnalia 
Dei.  Pardon  me,  if  I  request  you,  in  my  name,  to  trans- 
fer the  paper  to  Captain  Mason,  who  saith  he  loves  me. 
God  is  love  ;  in  him  only  1  desire  to  be  yours  ever, 

"ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  Loving  salutes  to  yOur  dearest  and  kind  sister. 

*'  I  have  been  very  sick  of  coW  and  fever,  but  God  hath 
"been  gracious  to  me.  I  am  not  yet  resolved  of  a  course 
for  my  daughter.  If  your  powder,  with  directions,  might 
be  sent  without  trouble,  I  should  first  wait  upon  God  in 
that  way  :  howeverj  it  is  best  to  wait  on  him.  If  the  in- 
gredients be  costly,  I  shall  thankfully  account.  I  have 
books  that  prescribe  powders,  &c.  but  yours  isprobatum  in 
this  country." 

We  know  little  of  the  condition  of  Providence  at  this 
time.  We  may  presume,  however,  that  it  continued  to 
flourish.  It  is  stated,  that  about  this  period,  there  were, 
in  Providence  and  its  vicinity,  one  hundred  and  one  men, 
fit  to  bear  arms.t  This  fact  indicates  a  large  increase  of 
population,  in  a  period  of  less  than  ten  years. 

After  a  considerable  lapse  of  time,  the  inhabitants  of 
Providence,  Portsmouth,  Newport,  and  Warwick,  agreed 
on  a  form  of  civil  government.  This  form,  says  Mr. 
Backus,  provided  for  the  election  of  '^  a  President  and  four 
Assistants  annually,  who  had  the  executive  power,  were 
judges  in   the  courts  of  law  and  kept  the  peace.     An  As- 

*  Mr.  Williams  commonly  employed  the  numerical  mode  of  re- 
ferring to  the  month  and  day  of  the  week.  He  usually  added  to  the 
date  the  words  (so  called)  or  (ut  vulgo),  intimating  some  dissent 
from  the  common  computation  of  time  ;  but  what  his  own  views 
were  does  not  appear.  The  pertinacity  with  which  he  adhered  to 
this  practice  is  characteristic  of  his  punctilious  regard  to  trifles,  when 
he  thought  truth  was  concerned. 

t  Holmes,  vol.  i.  p.  279, 


208  MEMOIR     OP 

senibly,  of  six  commissioners,  or  representatives,  from  each 
town,  made  laws,  and  ordered  their  general  affairs  ;  but  their 
laws  must  be  sent  to  every  town,  to  be  deliberately  consid- 
ered in  their  town  meetings,  from  whence  the  clerk  was  to 
send  an  account  of  their  votes  to  the  General  Recorder  ; 
and,  if  the  majority  of  the  towns  approved  the  law,  it  was 
confirmed,  if  not,  it  was  disannulled.  The  Assembly 
chose  yearly  a  Treasurer  and  a  General  Recorder  and  Gen- 
eral Sergeant,  which  are  only  other  names  for  a  Secretary 
and  Sheriff.  In  each  town,  six  persons  were  yearly  chosen, 
who  were  called  the  Town  Council,  who  had  the  powers 
of  a  Court  of  Probate,  of  granting  licenses  to  inn-keepers 
and  retailers,  and  the  care  of  the  poor." 

The  first  General  Assembly  met  at  Portsmouth,  May  19, 
1647,  when  John  Coggshall  was  chosen  President,  Roger 
Williams  assistant  for  Providence,  John  Sanford  for  Ports- 
mouth, William  Coddington  for  Newport,  and  Randall 
Holden  for  Warwick.  William  Dyer  was  chosen  Record- 
er. They  agreed  upon  a  body  of  laws,  chiefly  taken  from 
the  laws  of  England,  with  the  addition  of  a  {ew  suited  to 
their  particular  circumstances.  In  the  introduction  of  this 
code,  the  form  of  government  established  is  called  "  demo- 
cratical,  that  is  to  say,  a  government  held  by  the  free  and 
voluntary  consent  of  all,  or  the  greater  part  of  the  free  in- 
habitants." 

The  code,  which  contains  nothing  except  civil  regula- 
tions, concludes  thus  :  "  Otherwise  than  thus,  what  is  here- 
in forbidden,  all  men  may  walk  as  their  consciences  per- 
suade them,  every  one  in  the  name  of  his  God.  And  let 
the  lambs  of  the  Most  High  walk,  in  this  colony,  without 
molestation,  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  their  God,  forever 
and  ever."  This  noble  principle  was  thus  established,  as 
one  of  the  fundamental  laws,  at  the  first  Assembly  under 
the  charter.  It  is  indigenous  to  the  Rhode-Island  soil,  and 
is  the  glory  of  the  state. 

Mr.  Williams  had  a  large  share  in  thus  organizing  the 
government.  His  services  were  gratefully  recognized  by 
the  Assembly,  who,  at  their  first  session,  adopted  the  fol- 
lowing resolution  :* 

*  A  vote  passed,  granting  Mr.  Williams  "  leave  to  suffer  a  native 
to  kill  fowl  at  Narraganset,  and  to  sell  a  little  wine  or  strong  waters 
to  some  natives  in  sickness." 


R  O  G  E 11     WILLIAMS.  209 

"  That  forasmuch  as  Mr.  Roger  Williams  hath  taken 
great  pains,  and  expended  much  time,  in  obtaining  the 
charter  for  this  province,  of  our  noble  Lords  and  Governors, 
be  it  enacted  and  established,  that,  in  regard  to  his  so  great 
trouble,  charges  and  good  endeavors,  we  do  freeJy  give  and 
grant  unto  the  said  Mr.  Roger  Williams  an  hundred  pounds, 
to  be  levied  out  of  the  three  towns,  viz.:  fifty  pounds  out  of 
Newport,  thirty  pounds  of  Portsmouth,  twenty  pounds  out, 
of  Providence ;  which  rate  is  to  be  levied  and  paid  in  by 
the  last  of  November."     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  199. 

This  grant  of  one  hundred  pounds  was  voted,  but  for 
some  reason,  Mr.  Williams  never  received  it  ail.*  It  was, 
undoubtedly,  a  very  inadequate  compensation  for  his  toils 
and  expenses,  in  procuring  the  charter. 

The  following  very  characteristic  letter  belongs  here. 
The  seal  is  a  rude  representation  of  a  tulip,  or  other  flower, 
the  impression  sunk,  and  not  raised  : 

"  For  his  worshipful,  and  his  much  honored,  kind  friend, 
Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at  Nameaug,  these. 

"  Cawcawmsqussickj  28,  3,  47,  [so  called.) 
"  Worthy  Sir, 

"  Loving  respects  and  salutations  to  your  kind  self  and 
your  kindest  companion.  Some  while  since,  you  desired  a 
word  of  direction  about  the  hay  seed.  I  desired  my  broth- 
er to  collect  his  own  and  other  neighbors'  observations 
about  it,  which  (with  his  respects  presented)  amounts  to 
this. 

"  First,  usually  three  bushels  seed  to  one  acre  land. 

"  2.  It  hath  been  known  to  spread,  to  mat,  ^c.  the  In- 
dian hills  being  only  scraped  or  levelled. 

"  3.  This  may  be  done  at  any  time  of  the  year,  but  the 
sooner  the  better. 

"4.  It  is  best  to  sow  it  upon  a  rain  preceding. 

*'5.  Some  say  let  the  ripe  grass  stand  until  it  seed,  and 

*  In  some  considerations  respecting  rates,  written  in  1G81,  Mr- 
Williams  says  :  ''  No  charters  are  obtained  without  great  suit,  favor, 
or  charges.  Our  first  cost  one  hundred  pounds,  (though  I  never  re- 
ceived it  all.)  our  second  about  a  thousand,  Connecticut  about  six 
thousand."  Mr.  Williams  was  afterwards  accused  by  Mr.  Codding- 
ton,  as  a  hireling,  who,  for  the  sake  of  money,  went  to  England  for 
the  charter!  See  Coddington's  letter,  at  the  end  of  New-England 
Firebrand  Quenched. 


210  MEMOIR     OF 

the  wind  disperse  it  (susque  deque)  up  and  down,  for  it  is 
of  that  thriving  and  homogeneal  nature  with  the  earth, 
that  the  very  dung  of  cattle  that  feeds  on  it  will  produce  the 
grain, 

"  6.  The  offs,  which  can  hardly  be  severed  from  the 
seed,  hath  the  same  productive  faculty. 

"  7.  Sow  it  not  in  an  orchard,  near  fruit  trees,  for  it  will 
steal,  and  rob  the  trees,  &c. 

"Sir:  Concerning  Indian  affairs,  reports  are  various; 
lies  are  frequent.  Private  interests,  both  with  Indians  and 
English,  are  many  ;  yet  these  things  you  may  and  must  do. 
First,  kiss  truth  where  you  evidently,  upon  your  soul,  see 
it.  2.  Advance  justice,  though  upon  a  child's  eyes.  3. 
Seek  and  make  peace,  if  possible,  with  all  men.  4.  Se- 
cure your  own  life  from  a  revengeful,  malicious  arrow  or 
hatchet.  I  have  been  in  danger  of  them,  and  delivered  yet 
from  them ;  blessed  be  his  holy  name,  in  whom  I  desire  to 
be 

"  Your  worship's,  in  all  unfeigned 
"  respects  and  love, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  following  letter  relates,  probably,  to  the  collection 
of  the  wampum  to  be  paid  to  the  commissioners,  by  the 
Narragansets,  in  accordance  with  the  treaty. 

"  Cmocawmsqussick,  20,  6,  47,  (so  called.) 
"  Sir, 
"  Due  respects  presented,  &c.  I  am  importuned  by 
Ninigret,*  in  express  words,  to  present  his  respects  and 
love  to  your  honored  father,  and  to  the  honored  President 
of  the  commissioners,  giving  great  thanks  for  the  great  fa- 
vor and  kindness  showed  him.  Withal,  he  prays  you  ear- 
nestly to  present  his  humble  suit,  that  since  he,  by  reason 
of  his  travel  and  illness,  can,  as  yet,  get  no  further  towards 
his  own  home,  and  finds  he  must  have  much  work  with  the 
natives  of  these  parts,  before  he  repair  home,  and  time  to 


*  A  sachem  of  the  Nianticks,  a  branch  of  the  Narraganset  tribe. 
Ninigret's  principal  residence,  and  the  centre  of  his  dominions,  was 
at  Wekapaiig,  now  Westerly,  Rhode-Island.  It  was  formerly  a  part 
of  Stonington,  Connecticut.  Thatcher's  Indian  Biography,  vol.  i. 
p.  212. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  21) 

spend  exceeding  fast,  it  may  be  accounted  no  breach  of 
faithfulness  of  his  promise,  if  he  finish  the  contribution  he 
is  now  about,  within  a  few  days  after  the  punctual  time. 
The  other  sachems,  upon  agitations,  have  promised  their 
utmost  concurrence,  to  finish  all  within  a  month  from  the 
day  of  his  promise,  which  time  he  earnestly  requests  may 
be  assented  to,  hoping  to  make  payment  before,  but  not 
questioning  by  the  expiration  of  that  time.  By  this  bearer, 
he  humbly  prays  a  word  of  answer,  that,  with  the  more 
cheerful  concurrence  of  the  other  sachems,  (who  join  with 
him  in  this  request,)  he  may  be  the  more  cheerful  in  the 
work.  Sir,  I  discern  nothing  but  reality  and  reason  in  his 
request ;  otherwise,  I  should  not  dare  to  molest  you,  or 
those  honored  persons  whom  it  concerns;  to  whom,  with 
my  humble  respects,  and  to  yourself  presented,  beseeching 
the  Most  High  to  be  your  portion  ^  I  rest, 
''  Your  worship's  unworthy 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  Pesickosh  desired  me  to  present  his  great  thanks  for 
his  child, 

"  Sir  :  Your  man  is  with  me  at  present  writing,  well, 
this  last  of  the  week,  and  will  be  going  instantly.  Hum- 
ble thanks  for  the  sight  of  papers  from  England.  The  sea 
will  be  the  sea  till  it  be  no  more.      Revel.  2L 

"  Respects  to  your  dearest." 

The  following  agreement,  written,  evidently,  by  Mr. 
Williams,  and  signed  by  himself  and  several  of  the  citizens 
of  Providence,  is  a  proof  of  his  pacific  principles,  and  of 
his  desire  for  the  peace  and  vvelfare  of  the  colony  ; 

"  Considering  the  great  mercy  afforded  unto  us,  in  this 
liberty  thus  to  meet  together,  being  denied  to  many  of  our 
countrymen  in  most  parts,  especially  in  our  poor  native 
country,  now  deploring  their  distressed  condition  in  most 
sad  and  bloody  calamities :  That  ingratitude  and  disac- 
knowledgments  for  favors  received,  are  just  causes  for  the 
deprivation  of  them,  together  with  home  divisions  and  home 
conspiracies,  the  ruination  of  families,  towns  and  coun- 
tries. Moreover,  the  many  plots  and  present  endeavors, 
at  home  and  abroad,  not  only  to  disturb  our  peace  and  lib- 
erties, but  utterly  to   root  up  both  root   and   branch  of  this 


2fl2  '  MEMOIR     OP 

our  being ;  that  government  held  forth  through  love,  union 
and  order,  although  by  few  in  number  and  mean  in  condi- 
tion, yet  (by  experience)  hath  withstood  and  overcome 
mighty  opposers ;  and,  above  all,  the  several  unexpected 
deliverances  of  this  poor  plantation,  by  that  mighty  Provi- 
dence who  is  still  able  to  deliver  us,  through  love,  union 
and  order.  Therefore,  being  sensible  of  these  great  and 
weighty  premises,  and  now  met  together  to  consult  about 
our  peace  and  liberty,  whereby  our  families  and  posterity 
may  still  enjoy  these  favors ;  and  that  we  may  publicly  de- 
clare unto  all  the  free  discharge  of  all  our  consciences  and 
duties,  whereby  it  may  appear  upon  record  that  we  are  not 
wilfully  opposite,  nor  careless  and  senseless,  and  thereby 
the  means  of  our  own  and  others'  ruin  and  destruction  ; — 
a^d  especially  in  testimony  of  our  fidelity  and  cordial  affec- 
tion unto  one  another  here  present,  that  so  there  may  be  a 
current  placable  proceeding,  we  do  faithfully  and  unanimous- 
ly, by  this  our  subscription,  promise  unto  each  other  to  keep 
unto  these  ensuing  particulars  :  First,  that  the  foundation 
in  love  may  appear  among  us,  what  causes  of  difference 
have  heretofore  been  given,  either  by  word  or  misbehavior, 
in  public  or  private,  concerning  particular  or  general  af- 
fairs, by  any  of  us  here  present,  not  to  mention  or  repeat 
them  in  the  assembly,  but  that  love  shall  cover  the  multi- 
tude of  them  in  the  grave  of  oblivion.  Secondly,  that  union 
may  proceed  from  love,  we  do  promise  to  keep  constalY 
unto  those  several  engagements  made  by  us,  both  unto  our 
town  and  colony,  and  that,  to  the  uttermost  of  our  powers 
and  abilities  to  maintain  our  lawful  rights  and  privileges, 
and  to  uphold  the  government  of  this  plantation.  Also, 
that  love  may  appear  in  union,  we  desire  to  abandon  all 
causeless  fears  and  jealousies  of  one  another,  only  aiming 
at  the  general  and  particular  peace  and  union  of  this  town 
and  colony.  Lastly,  for  our  more  orderly  proceeding  in 
this  assembly,  whereby  love  and  union  may  appear  in  order, 
if  in  our  consultations  differences  in  judgment  shall  arise, 
then  moderately  in  order,  through  argumentation,  to  agitate 
the  same ;  considering  the  cause,  how  far  it  may  be  hurt- 
ful, or  conducing  unto  our  union,  peace  and  liberty,  and 
accordingly  act,  not  after  the  will  or  person  of  any,  but 
unto  the  justice  and  righteousness  of  the  cause.  Again, 
if  such  cause  shall  be  presented,  wherein  such  difficulties 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  '^IJJ 

shall  appear,  that  evident  arguments  cannot  be  given  for 
present  satisfaction,  but  that  either  town  or  colony,  or  both, 
shall  suffer,  then  to  take  into  consideration  a  speech  of  a 
beloved  friend,  *'  better  to  suffer  an  inconvenience  than  a 
mischief,"  better  to  suspend  with  a  loss  that  may  be  incon- 
venient, than  to  be  totally  disunited  and  bereaved  of  all 
rights  and  liberties,  which  will  be  a  mischief  indeed. 
Moreover,  that  offences  and  distractions  may  be  prevented, 
that  so  the  current  of  business  may  peaceably  proceed  in 
this  assembly,  we  do  faithfully  promise  to  carry  ourselves, 
in  words  and  behavior,  so  moderately  and  orderly  as  the 
cause  shall  permit ;  and  if  any  of  us  shall  fly  out  in  pro- 
voking, scurrilous,  exorbitant  speeches,  and  unsuitable 
behavior,  that  he  or  they  so  doing  shall  be  publicly  declar- 
ed, branded,  and  noted  upon  record,  to  be  a  covenant  vio- 
lator, and  disturber  of  the  union,  peace  and  liberty  of  this 
plantation.  We  do  here  subscribe,  without  partiality. 
Dated  December,  1647. 

Robert  Williams,  William  Wickenden, 

Roger  Williams,  John  Tripp, 

John  Smith,  Thomas  Hopkins, 

Hugh   Bewit,  William  Hawkins." 

It  is  a  proof,  that  Mr.  Williams  was  not  a  very  ambitious 
man,  that  he  put  himself  entirely  on  a  level  with  his  fellow 
citizens,  and  v.'as  willing  to  serve  the  colony  in  the  subor- 
dinate situation  of  an  assistant.  He  was  entitled,  from  his 
character  and  services,  to  be  the  first  President ;  but  he 
was,  doubtless,  disposed  to  yield  his  own  claims,  to  concili- 
ate the  other  tov/ns.  His  services,  as  a  peace-maker,  were 
often  needed. 

It  could  scarcely  be  expected,  that  towns,  composed  of 
so  many  discordant  materials,  would  coalesce  quietly  in  one 
government.  The  principle  on  which  the  colony  was  found- 
ed, made  it  the  resort  of  many  uneasy  spirits,  who  occasioned 
difficulties  which  disturbed  its  peace,  and  brought  unde- 
served odium  on  the  better  portion  of  the  inhabitants. 

In  May,  1648,  Mr.  Qoddington  was  elected  President, 
and  Jeremiah  Clarke,  Ro2"er  Williams,  William  Baulstone, 
and  John  Smith,  Assistants ;  Philip  Sherman,  Recorder ; 
and  Alexander  Partridge,  General  Sergeant. 

In  September  following,  Mr.  Coddington  and  Mr.  Part- 
19 


214  51  E  ftl  O  1  R     O  1' 

ridge  applied,  in  person,  to  the  commissioners  of  the  united 
colonies,  requesting  that  the  island  of  Rhode-Island  might 
be  received  as  a  member  of  the  league,  alleging  it  to  be  the 
desire  of  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants.  But  the  commis- 
sioners refused  to  admit  them,  unless  the  island  were  placed 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  Plymouth.  It  was  a  happy  event 
for  Rhode-Island,  that  this  request  was  refused,  for  I' ad  it 
been  granted,  the  effect  might  have  been  the  separation  of 
the  island  from  the  rest  of  the  colony. 

In  this  posture  of  affairs,  Mr.  Williams  again  tried  his  in- 
fluence as  a  peace-maker.  In  August,  1648,  he  addressed 
the  following  letter  to  the  town  of  Providence  : 

"  Worthy  friends,  that  ourselves  and  all  men  are  apt  and 
prone  to  differ,  it  is  no  new  thing.  In  all  former  ages,  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  in  these  parts,  and  in  our  dear  native 
country  and  mournful  state  of  England,  that  either  part  or 
party  is  most  right  in  his  own  eyes,  his  cause  right,  his 
carriage  right,  his  arguments  right,  his  answers  right,  is  as 
wofuUy  and  constantly  true  as  the  former.  And  experience 
tells  us,  that  when  the  God  of  peace  hath  taken  peace  from 
the  earth,  one  spark  of  action,  word  or  carriage  is  too  power- 
ful to  kindle  such  a  fire  as  burns  up  towns,  cities,  armies, 
navies,  nations  and  kingdoms.  And  since,  dear  friends,  it 
is  an  honor  for  men  to  cease  from  strife ;  since  the  life  of 
love  is  sweet,  and  union  is  as  strong  as  sweet ;  and  since 
you  have  been  lately  pleased  to  call  me  to  some  public  ser- 
vice and  my  soul  hath  been  long  musing  how  I  might  bring 
water  to  quench,  and  not  oil  or  fuel  to  the  flame,  I  am  now 
humbly  bold  to  beseech  you,  by  all  those  comforts  of  earth 
and  heaven  which  a  placable  and  peaceable  spirit  will  bring 
to  you,  and  by  all  those  dreadful  alarms  and  warnings,  either 
amongst  ourselves,  in  deaths  and  sicknesses,  or  abroad  in 
the  raging  calamities  of  the  sword,  death  and  pestilence;  1 
say  humbly  and  earnestly  beseech  you  to  be  willing  to  be 
pacifiable,  willing  to  be  reconcilable,  willing  to  be  sociable, 
and  to  listen  to  the  (I  hope  not  unreasonable)  motion  fol- 
lowing :  To  try  out  matters  by  disputes  and  writings,  is 
sometimes  endless;  to  try  out  arguments  by  arms  and 
swords,  is  cruel  and  merciless;  to  trouble  the  state  and 
Lords  of  England,  is  most  unreasonable,  most  chargeable; 
to  trouble  our  neighbors  of  other  colonies,  seems  neither 
safe  nor  honorable.    Methinks,  dear  friends,  the  colony  now 


ROGER      \V  IT,LI  A  MS.  215 

looks  with  the  torn  face  of  two  parties^  and  that  the  greater- 
number  of  Portsmouth,  with  other  loving  friends  adhering 
to  them,  appear  as  one  grieved  party  ;  the  other  three  towns, 
or  greater  part  of  them,  appear  to  be  another:  Let  each 
party  choose  and  nominate  three ;  Portsmouth  and  friends 
adhering  three,  the  other  party  three,  one  out  of  each  town  ; 
let  authority  be  given  to  them  to  examine  every  public  dif- 
ference, grievance  and  obstruction, of  justice,  peace  and 
common  safety  :  let  them,  by  one  final  sentence  of  all  or 
the  greater  part  of  them,  end  all,  and  set  the  whole  into  an 
unanimous  posture  and  order,  and  let  them  set  a  censure 
upon  any  that  shall  oppose  their  sentence.  One  log,  with- 
out your  gentle  help,  I  cannot  stir ;  it  is  this  :  How  shall 
the  minds  of  the  towns  be  known?  How  shall  the  persons 
chosen  be  called  1  Time  and  place  appointed  in  any  expe- 
dition ?  For  myself  I  can  thankfully  embrace  the  help  of 
Mr.  Coddington  or  Mr.  Clarke,  joined  or  apart,  but  hoAV 
many  are  there  who  will  attend,  (as  our  distempers  are)  to 
neither?  It  is,  gentlemen,  in  the  power  of  the  body  to  re- 
quire the  help  of  any  of  her  members,  and  both  King  and 
Parliament  plead,  that  in  extraordinary  cases  they  have 
been  forced  to  extraordinary  ways  for  common  safety.  Let 
me  be  friendly  construed,  if  (for  expedition)  I  am  bold  to 
be  too  forward  in  this  service,  and  to  say,  that  if  within 
twenty  days  of  the  date  hereof,  you  please  to  send  to  my 
house,  at  Providence,  the  name  of  him  whom  you  please  to 
nominate,  at  your  desire  I  will  acquaint  all  the  persons 
chosen  with  place  and  time,  unto  which  in  your  name  I 
shall  desire  their  meeting  within  ten  days,  or  thereabouts, 
after  the  receipt  of  your  letter.  I  am  your  mournful  and 
unworthy  ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

"  This  address,"  says  Mr.  Backus,  "  had  such  an  effect, 
that  Mr.  Williams  was  received  to  act  as  President  of  the 
colony,  till  their  election  at  Warwick,  May  22,  1649." 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  throws  some  light 
on  the  state  of  things  at  that  time  : 

"For my  much  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  his  house,  at  Nameug,  these. 

"  Cawcawmsqussick,  23,  7,  48,  (so  called.) 
"  Kind  Sir, 
"  Best  salutations  to  your  dear  selves  and  loving  sister, 


216  MEMOIR     OF 

I  am  bold  and  yet  glad  to  trouble  you,  that  by  this  occasion 
I  may  hear  of  your  welfare.  Capt.  Mason  lately  requested 
me  to  forbid  the  Narragansets  to  hunt  at  Peciuod,  and  to  as- 
sure them  of  his  visiting  of  them  if  they  so  did.  I  have 
written  now  an  answer,  which  I  am  bold  to  request  you  to 
send  at  your  next  opportunity.  Two  days  since  I  was  at 
Providence,  and  then  Mr.  Brown  was  not  returned,  only  he 
had  wrote  home  some  angry  passage  against  the  Narra- 
gansets, who  are  now  in  expectation  of  some  assault  from 
the  English.  Sir,  whether  it  please  God  to  visit  us  with 
peace  or  war,  in  life  and  death  I  desire  to  be 
"  Yours  ever  in  Christ  Jesus, 

"ROGER   WILLIAMS. 

"  Sir,  our  neighbors  Mr.  Coddington  and  Capt.  Partridge, 
ten  days  since,  returned  from  Plymouth  with  propositions 
for  Rhode-Island  to  subject  to  Plymouth  ;  to  which  himself 
and  Portsmouth  incline  ;  our  other  three  towns  decline,  and 
Mr.  Holden  and  Mr.  AVarner,  of  Warwick,  cam.e  from 
thence  also,  and  they  say,  gave  satisfaction  why  they  dare 
not  (the  other  three  towns)  depart  from  the  charter.  Sir, 
in  this  division  of  our  neighbors,  I  have  kept  myself  unen- 
gaged, and  presented  motions  of  pacification,  amongst 
which  I  was  bold  to  propose  a  reference  to  your  worthy 
self  and  some  other  friend  to  be  chosen  ;  our  town  yields 
to  it,  and  Mr.  Boston  (though  opposite)  and  possibly  you 
may  have  the  trouble  and  honor  of  a  peace-maker. 

"  Sir,  pray  seal  the  enclosed." 

It  appears  by  this  letter,  and  by  other  evidence,  that 
Plymouth  was  desirous  to  add  the  beautiful  island  to  her 
territory.  Three  years  before,  she  claimed  it  as  belonging 
to  her  jurisdiction ;  and  Massachusetts  insisted  on  her  title 
to  the  allegiance  of  the  inhabitants  of  Pawtuxet  and  War- 
wick.*    Winthrop  says,  under  the  date  of  May,   1645  :t 


*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  204,  &c. 

t  Journal,  vol.  ii.  220.  Mr.  Savage  says,  in  a  note,  '•  I  rejoice  in 
the  defeat  of  this  futile  claim  by  Plymouth,  and  equally  rejoice  in 
the  ill  success  of  the  attempt  by  our  own  people." 

We  may  appropriately  introduce  here  a  remarkable  document, 
found  in  the  Massacluisetts  Records,  vol.  3,  p.  47  : 

•'  Sir,  we  receiAa^d  lately  out  of  England  a  charter  from  the  au- 
thority of  the  High  Court  of  Parliament,  bearing  date  10  December, 
J 643,  whereby  the  Narraganset  Bay,  and   a  certain    tract  of  land 


llOnER     WILLIAMS.  521? 

"  The  government  of  Plymouth  sent  one  of  their  magis- 
trates, Mr.  Brown,  to  Aquetneck  island,  to  forbid  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, (Soc.  to  exercise  any  of  their  pretended  authority 
upon  the  island,  claiming  it  to  be  within  their  jurisdiction. 
Our  Court  also  sent  to  forbid  them  to  exercise  any  authority 
within  that  part  of  our  jurisdiction  at  Pawtuxet  and  Shaw- 
omet,  and  although  they  had  boasted  to  do  great  matters 
there,  by  virtue  of  their  charter,  yet  they  dared  not  to 
attempt  any  thing." 

Connecticut  afterwards  laid  claim  to  a  part  of  the  western 
territory  of  Rhode-Island.  Thus  was  the  little  colony 
pressed  on  each  side  by  her  more  powerful  neighbors,  who 

wherein  Providence  and  tlie  Island  of  Aquetneck  are  included, 
which  we  thought  fit  to  give  you  and  other  of  our  countrymen  in 
those  parts  notice  of,  that  you  may  forbear  to  exercise  any  jurisdiction 
therein,  otherwise  to  appear  at  our  next  General  Court,  to  be  holden 
the  first  fourth  day  of  the  eighth  month,  to  show  by  what  right  you 
claim  any  such  jurisdiction,  for  which  purpose  yourself  and  others, 
your  neighbors,  shall  have  free  liberty  to  come,  stay  and  sojourn,  as 
the  occasion  of  the  said  business  may  require. 

'•  Dated  at  Boston,  in  the  Massachusetts,  27th  Cm.o.  1645 

"  To  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  of  Providence.  By  order  of  the  Council. 
INCREASE    NO  WELL,  Secretary." 

No  notice  of  this  charter  has  been  found  in  Winthrop,  Hutchinson, 
or  Holmes'  Annals.  Mr.  Williams,  in  his  letter  to  Major  Mason, 
says: 

'•  Gome  time  after  the  Pequod  war,  and  our  charter  from  the  Par- 
llaujent,  the  government  of  Massachusetts  wrote  to  myself  (then 
chief  officer  in  this  colony)  of  their  receiving  of  a  patent  from  the 
Parliament  for  these  vacant  lands,  as  an  addition  to  the  Massachusetts , 
«fec.  and  thereupon  requiring  me  to  exercise  no  more  authority,  &c. 
for  they  wrote,  their  charter  was  granted  some  weeks  before  ours. 
I  returned  what  I  believed  righteous  and  weighty  to  the  hands  of 
my  true  friend,  Mr.  Winthrop,  the  first  mover  of  my  coming  into 
these  parts,  and  to  that  answer  of  mine  I  never  received  the  least 
reply  ;  only  it  is  certain,  that  at  Mr.  Gorton's  complaint  against  the 
Massachusetts,  the  Lord  High  Admiral,  President,  said  openly,  in  a 
full  meeting  of  the  Commissioners,  that  he  knew  no  other  charter  for 
these  parts  than  what  Mr.  Williams  had  obtained,  and  he  was  sure 
that  charter,  Vv'hich  the  Massachusetts  Englishmen  pretended,  had 
never  passed  the  table." 

This  whole  transaction  is  somewhat  mysterious.  The  rulers  in 
Massachusetts  were  too  upright  to  assert  the  existence  of  such  a 
document,  if  they  had  it  not  in  their  possession.  They  were  too 
honest  and  too  politic  to  forge  one,  the  spuriousness  of  which  could 
easily  be  detected.  There  was,  undoubtedly,  some  mistake,  and  the 
silence  of  the  historians  corroborates  the  representation  given  above 
by  Mr.  Williams. 

19* 


2iS  ME  Mom     OF 

would  gladly  have  enacted,  at  that  early  day,  the  same 
scene  which  was  long  afterwards  presented  in  Poland, 
though  the  wrong  would  certainly  have  been  less  flagrant, 
and  the  motive  less  criminal.  Thanks  to  the  protection  of 
God,  and  to  the  prudent  firmness  of  Mr.  Williams  and  others, 
the  colony  escaped  all  the  designs  of  her  neighbors,  and 
has  continued  till  this  day,  small  in  territory,  but  strong  in 
her  love  of  freedom,  and  consistent  in  her  maintenance  of 
the  principles  of  her  founder. 

The  Indians  again  disturbed  the  colonies.  "  In  August, 
1648,"  says  Mr.  Backus,*  "  about  one  thousand  Indians 
from  various  parts  were  collected  in  Connecticut,  with  three 
hundred  guns  among  them,  and  it  was  reported  that  they 
were  hired  by  the  Narragansets  to  fight  with  Uncas.  The 
magistrates  of  Hartford  sent  three  horsemen  to  inquire  what 
they  designed,  and  to  let  them  know,  that  if  they  made  war 
with  him,  the  English  must  defend  him,  upon  which  they 
dispersed.  When  the  commissioners  met  at  Plymouth  the 
next  month,  they  ordered  four  men  to  be  sent  to  the  Narra- 
gansets, with  instructions  how  to  treat  with  them,  both  con- 
cerning their  hiring  other  Indians  to  war  upon  Uncas,  and 
also  about  the  tribute  of  wampum  that  was  behind.  Cap- 
tain Atherton  and  Captain  Prichard  undertook  the  service, 
and  going  to  Mr.  Williams,  they  procured  the  sachems  to 
be  sent  for,  but  they,  hearing  that  many  horsemen  were 
come  to  take  them,  shifted  for  themselves.  Passacus  fled 
to  Rhode-Island,  but  soon  after,  they  were,  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liams' means,  delivered  of  their  fears,  and  came  to  the  mes- 
sengers as  they  were  desired,  and  denied  their  hiring  the 
Mohawks  to  war  against  Uncas,  though  they  owned  that 
they  had  sent  them  a  present." 

The  following  letters  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  relating  to  the 
concerns  of  the  Indians,  with  occasional  references  to  the 
important  events  which  were  then  transpiring  in  England, 
may  be  properly  introduced  here  : 

"  For  his  much  honored  and  beloved  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  Nameug. 

"  Cawcaiomsqussick,  10,  8,  48,  [so  called.) 
''  Sir, 
"  Best   salutations  to  your  dear  selves   and   loving  sis- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  194-5. 


ROGER     WILIIAMS.  2l9 

ter.  In  my  last  I  intimated  a  promise  of  presenting  you 
with  what  here  passeth.  Captain  Atherton,  Captain  Prich- 
ard,  Richard  Wood  and  Strong  Tuchell,  have  been  with 
me  (as  also  Wm.  Arnold,  instead  of  his  son  Benedict,  who 
withdrew  himself,  though  sent  unto,)  these  six  or  seven  days. 
They  were  at  Niantick  two  nights.  Captain  Atherton  pur- 
posed to  visit  you,  but  they  appointing  their  meeting  with 
all  the  sachems  at  my  house,  they  came  back ;  and  this 
morning,  (the  fourth  day  of  the  week,)  they  are  departed 
with  good  content  toward  the  Bay.  From  the  commis- 
sioners they  brought  several  articles,  but  the  main  were 
three  ;  concerning  the  Mohawks,  &c. ;  2d,  the  payment ; 
3d,  Uncas'  future  safety.  To  the  first,  they  sent  answer 
(and  that  they  confirmed  with  many  asseverations,  and 
one  of  them  voluntarily  took  the  Englishmen's  God  to  wit- 
ness) that  they  gave  not  a  penny  to  hire  the  Mohawks 
against  the  Mohegans,  but  that  it  v/as  wholly  wrought  by 
Wussoonkquassin,  (which  they  discovered  as  a  secret)  who 
being  bound  by  Uncas,  and  Wuttouwuttauoum,  Uncas  his 
cousin,  having  attempted  to  shoot  a  Mohawk  sachem  at 
that  time,  resolved  with  the  Mohawks  (to  whom  he  also 
gave  peag)  to  take  revenge  upon  Uncas  ;  Wussoonkquassin 
sent  them  word  and  desired  peag  of  them  in  the  spring,  but 
they  profess  they  consented  not,  nor  sent  not  a  penny,  af- 
terwards they  sent  Waupinhommin  up  to  inquire  to  Paw- 
catuok  and  however  they  have  given  some  of  the  Mohe- 
gans peag  this  year,  (as  they  have  always  done)  yet  they 
say  they  are  clear  from  giving  a  penny  in  hire,  ^c.  They 
confQss  their  enmity  against  Uncas,  and  they  (to  the  2d) 
will  not  rest  until  they  have  finished  their  payments,  that 
they  may  present  their  complaints  against  Uncas,  who  (they 
say)  and  other  Indians,  within  these  three  years,  have  com- 
mitted thirteen  murders  with  impunity,  being  out  of  their 
reach  in  the  English  protection.  This  last  year  they  plead- 
ed they  were  near  starved,  and,  therefore,  sent  but  a  small 
quantity.  Now  they  promise,  upon  return  of  their  men 
from  hunting  this  winter,  to  make  a  contribution,  the  next 
spring  another,  and  so  according  as  they  can  draw  the  peo- 
ple to  it,  will  not  cease  to  furnish,  and  if  they  die,  their 
children  shall  fulfil,  and  that  it  is  their  sore  grief,  &c.  with 
much  to  this  purpose.  For  Uncas  they  profess  neither  di- 
rectly nor  indirectly,  to  have  to  do  with  him,  yet  hope  the 


5^0  i\T  E  M  O  1  n    OF 

English  will  not  deal  partially  with  him.  They  desired  the 
English  receipt  of  their  peag  ;  I  produced  the  note  you  sent 
me,  which,  because  it  was  not  signed  with  your  father's  hand 
or  the  Treasurer's,  &c.  the  messengers  promised  to  send 
them  one  from  the  Bay,  Ninigret,  made  great  lamentation 
that  you  had  entertained  hard  thoughts  of  him  in  this  busi- 
ness, and  all  the  sachems  here  professed  their  sorrow  and  that 
you  had  hearkened  to  Wequashcook,  who  they  say  never 
contributed  nor  joined  in  the  Pequod  wars,  and  now  flat- 
ters to  draw  his  neck  out  of  the  payments  to  the  English. 
They  hope  you  will  not  countenance  him  to  rob  Ninigret 
of  those  hunting  places  which  the  commissioners  gave  him 
leave  to  make  use  of,  and  he  with  the  English  had  fought 
for  with  the  expense  of  much  treasure  and  hazard  of  his 
life.  They  desire  that  he  may  and  Causasenamon  and  the 
rest  of  the  Pequods,  be  as  your  little  dogs,  but  not  as  your 
confederates,  w^hich  they  say  is  unworthy  yourself,  &lc. 
Sir,  I  perceive  the  English  about  the  Bay  inquire  after  new 
places.  Captain  Atherton  prays  me  shortly  to  convey  a 
letter  to  you.  I  forgot  one  passage  that  the  sachems  dis- 
covered, that  Wussoonkquassin  gave  peag  (o  the  Mohau'ks 
to  retreat.  It  seems  they  are  (Switzer  like)  mercenary,  and 
were  hired  on  and  off;  these  sachems  I  believe  desire  cor- 
dially to  hold  friendship  with  both  the  English  and  the  Mo- 
hawks together ;  I  am  confident  (whether  they  lie  or  not, 
about  Wussoonkquassin)  that  they  never  intended  hurt 
against  the  English  nor  yourself  and  yours  especially,  to 
whom  they  profess  great  respect,  and  jointly  they  desire  that 
Wequashcook  may  come  back  to  Connecticut  from  whence 
he  went,  for  if  he  join  with  Uncas  they  suspect  he  will 
secretly  be  a  means  of  some  of  their  deaths.  Lastly,  whereas 
they  heard  that  the  women  vv'ith  you  were  something  fear- 
ful, Ninigret  prays  Mrs.  Winthrop  to  be  assured,  that  there 
never  was,  nor  never  shall  be,  to  his  knowledge,  the  least 
offence  given  to  her  or  her  neighbors,  by  any  of  his  (though 
he  hath  learnt  it  partly  by  your  just  abhorring  of  Uncas  his 
outrageous  carriage  among  you,  and  of  which  I  have  not 
softly  told  these  messengers  and  the  admired  partiality  in 
the  case.)  For  a  token  of  his  fidelity  to  Mrs.  Winthrop, 
Ninigret  he  prays  me  to  write,  that  all  the  women  of  his 
town  shall  present  Mrs.  Winthrop  with  a  present  of  corn  at 
Pawcatuck,  if  she  please  to  send  in  any  conveyance  to  Paw- 
cat  uck  for  it. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  221 

*'  Sir,  to  gratify  them,  I  am  thus  bold  with  you,  and  de- 
siring your  eternal  peace,  I  rest 

"  Your  worship's  unworthy 

''ROGER   WILLIAMS. 
''  Sir,  I  formerly  wrote  to  you  and  now   still   crave  your 
help  with  Wequashcook,    who  keeps    basely  from  me  for 
live  or  six  coats,  and  can  neither  get  peag  nor  cloth." 

"  For  his  much  honored  and  beloved  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  Nameug. 

"  Caiccawmsqussick ,  7,  9,  48. 
''Kind  Sir, 

"  Best  salutations,  &lc.  I  am  requested  by  letter  of 
Captain  Atherton,  to  certify  what  I  can  advise  about 
Block-Island,  whether  it  might  be  had  of  the  natives, 
for  divers  of  the  English  (it  seems  to  my  conjecture)  upon 
some  agitations  at  the  last  Court,  have  thoughts  this  v/ay. 
Sir,  because  God  hath  pitched  your  tent  these  ways,^  and 
you  know  much  among  the  natives  of  these  parts,  I  judged 
it  not  unfit  to  pray  you  help  me  with  a  word  of  your  in- 
formation, before  I  write  what  otherwise  I  can,  from  the 
barbarians.  The  counsels  of  the  Most  High  are  deep  con- 
cerning us  poor  grasshoppers,  hopping  and  skipping  from 
branch  to  twig  in  this  vale  of  tears.  Wm.  Peacock  hath  had 
a  very  heavy  task  in  carrying  Joseph  with  cattle  from  you  ; 
six  or  seven  days  and  nights  the  poor  fellow  was  seeking 
them  (being  lost  and  scattered  from  Niantick.)  Then  he 
brought  six  to  my  house,  four  being  finally  lost;  I  took 
what  pains  I  could  to  get  them  sought  again,  and  three  I 
hear  are  found,  after  which  Wm.  Peacock  is  now  out,  and 
Hook  for  him  this  night  with  those  three;  Ninigret  did  his 
part  honestly,  but  the  youths  and  boys  thereabouts  (by  some 
occasion  hallooing)  the  cattle  thence  took  the  woods.  Jo- 
seph Wild  hath  wrhten  to  me,  and  I  acquaint  him  with  the 
cause,  that  one  man  alone  cannot  well  drive  cattle  amongst 
barbarians,  especially  without  an  Indian  guide.  It  were 
exceeding  well  that  three  or  four  poles  were  enclosed  at 
Niantick,  to  keep  cattle  there  at  night,  for  if  God  vouchsafe 
peace  and  plantations  (prosperity)  there  is  great  needs  of  it 
"  Sir,  I  desire  to  be  your  worship's  unfeigned, 

"ROGER   WILLIAMS." 


222  MEMOIR     OF 

"Sir, 

"  Loving  respects  to  yourself  and  dearest,  and  Mrs. 
Lake,  premised.  Two  days  since,  Ninigret  came  to  me  and 
requested  me  to  write  two  letters ;  the  one,  in  answer  to 
Captain  Atherton's  motion  for  some  English  planting  on 
Block-Island,  and  on  a  neck  at  Niantick  ;  the  other,  to 
yourself,  in  which  protesting  his  innocence  as  to  the  death 
of  his  son-in-law,  with  which  Uncas  and  the  Pequods  charge 
him.  He  prays  you  (as  of  yourself)  to  signify  (as  much  as 
you  can)  items  to  the  Pequods,  that  they  be  quiet  and  at- 
tempt nothing  (at  least,  treacherously,)  against  him,  which 
he  suspects,  from  words  from  Uncas,  that  it  will  be  pleasing 
to  the  English.  He  prays  you  also  to  be  mindful  of  en- 
deavoring to  remove  Wequashcook,  so  constant  a  provoca- 
tion before  him  ;  and,  at  present,  he  prays  you  to  send  for 
some  skins,  which  lately,  as  lord  of  the  place,  he  hath  re- 
ceived. I  hope  the  English  sachems,  as  I  tell  him,  in  the 
spring  will  hear  and  gratify  him  in  his  just  desires,  the  want 
of  which,  I  guess,  is  the  cause  that  he  is  not  free,  as  yet, 
for  Block-Island,  ^c. ;  but  expresseth  much,  if  the  Eng- 
lish do  him  justice  against  his  enemies.  Oh,  sir,  how  far 
from  nature  is  the  spirit  of  Christ  Jesus,  that  loves  and  pit- 
ies, prays  for  and  doth  good  to  enemies?  Sir,  it  is  like  he 
will  request  a  line  of  answer,  which,  if  you  please  to  give,  1 
pray,  sir,  write  when  either  of  those  ships  you  write  of  are  for 
England,  and  by  which  you  write  yourself;  also  where 
Mr.  Throgmorton  is,  and  whether  he  desires  I  should 
trouble  you  with  the  peag  of  which  I  wrote,  which  I  pro- 
pose, if  God  please,  (unless  countermanded  by  either  of  you) 
to  send  immediately  upon  hearing  from  you. 
"  Sir,  yours, 

"R.  W. 

'*  Sir,  since  I  wrote  this,  it  pleased  God  to  send  a  Dutch- 
man for  an  old  debt,  and  the  same  night  Mr.  Goodyear  also, 
to  whom  and  his  wife  (for  her  former  husband)  I  am  in- 
debted, and  so  was  necessitated  to  make  satisfaction  to  Mr. 
Goodyear  also.  These  providences  of  God  so  falling  will 
necessarily  cause  me  to  be  preparing  some  few  days  more 


*  This  letter  has  no  date,  nor   direction ;    but   it   was   evidently 
written  to  Mr.  Wintlirop,  not  long  after  the  precluding  letter. 


It  O  G  E  il     WILLIAMS.  228 

that  peag  for  Mr.  Throgmorton.  But  most  certainly  it, 
(God  please  I  live)  notwithstanding  ways  and  weather,  shall 
be  sent ;  this  I  write,  that  although  Mr.  Throgmorton 
should  depart,  or  come  home,  yet  he  may  presume  on  your 
faithfulness  and  love  to  dispose  of  it,  as  he  requesteth. 
"  Sir,  your  unworthy, 

"  R.  W. 
"  Captain  Underhill,  now  here  in  a  Dutch  vessel,  presents 
loving  respects." 

"  For  the  worshipful    Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at  Nameug, 
these.* 
"  Sir, 

"  Respective  salutations  to  you  both,  and  sister  Lake. 
At  this  instant  (the  first  of  the  week,  toward  noon,)  I  re- 
ceived yours,  and  shall  be  glad,  (if  God  will,)  you  may  gain 
a  seasonable  passage  by  us,  before  the  hardest  of  winter, 
although  I  cannot  advise  you  (but  to  pray  against  winter 
flights  and  journies,)  yet  if  the  necessity  of  God's  provi- 
dence so  cast  it,  I  shall  be  glad  that  we  might  have  you 
prisoner  in  these  parts,  yet  once  in  a  few  days  (though  in 
deep  snov.')  here  is  a  beaten  path,  &c.  Sir,  Ninigret 
again  importunes  me  to  write  to  your  father  and  yourself, 
about  his  and  hunting  at  Pequod,  that  you  would  also  be 
pleased  to  v.'rite  to  your  father.  I  have  endeavored  to  sat- 
isfy him  what  I  can,  and  shall,  yet  I  am  willing  at  present 
to  write  to  you,  not  so  much  concerning  that  you  can  fur- 
ther gratify  him  at  this  time,  but  that  I  may  by  this  oppor- 
tunity, salute  you  with  the  tidings  from  the  Bay  the  last 
night.  Skipper  Isaack  and  Moline,  are  come  into  the  Bay 
with  a  Dutch  ship,  and  (as  it  is  said)  have  brought  letters 
from  the  States  to  call  home  this  present  Dutch  Governor 
to  answer  many  complaints,  both  from  Dutch  and  English, 
against  him.  In  this  ship  are  come  English  passengers, 
and  they  bring  word  of  the  great  trials  it  pleaseth  the  Most 
High  and  Only  Wise,  to  exercise  both  our  native  Eng- 
land and  these  parts  also. 

"  The  Prince  is  said  to  be  strong  at  sea,  and  among  other 
mischiefs  hath  taken  Mr.  Trevice  his  ship  which  went  from 
hence,  and  sent  it  for  France,  it  seems  their   rendezvous. 

^  This  letter  has  no  date.  It  was  probably  written  near  the  first 
of  December,  1648.    It  is  endorsed,  by  Mr.  Winthrop, ''  rec'd.  Dec'r." 


2'24  M  E  M  O  1 11     OF 

"  Tt  is  said  that  after  Cronivvell  had  discomfited  the  Welch, 
with  six  thousand,  he  was  forced  to  encounter  nineteen 
thousand  Scots,  of  v/hom  he  took  nine  hundred  prisoners, 
&c.  Great  store  of  Scots  and  Welch  are  sent  and  sold  as 
slaves  into  other  parts.  Cromwell  wrote  to  the  Parliament 
that  he  hoped  to  be  at  Edinburgh  in  a  few  days.  A  com- 
mission was  sent  from  the  Parliament,  to  try  the  King  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  lately  prevented  from  escape. 

"  The  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  States  are  falling,  if 
not  already  fallen,  into  wars,  which  makes  some  of  the  States 
to  tender  Manhattoes,  as  place  of  retreat. 

"  Sir,  to  Him  in  whose  favor  is  life,  I  leave  you,  desiring 
in  Him  to  be 

"  Your  worship's  unworthy 

*' ROGER   WILLIAMS. 

"  John  prays  you  to  be  earnest  with  Mr.  Hollet  about  his 
house,  hoping  to  be  back  in  a  fortnight." 


"  Nar.  {prohahlytotcardstlic  dojc  of  Dec.  IQAS.) 
"  Sir, 
"  Best  salutations  to  your  worthy  self  and  yours,  premised. 
I  am  glad  for  your  sake,  that  it  hath  pleased  God  to  prevent 
your  winter  travel ;  though  I  gladly,  also,  this  la.«t  week, 
expected  your  passage,  and  being  at  Providence,  hastened 
purposely  to  attend  you  here.  Our  candle  burns  out  day  and 
night,  we  need  not  hasten  its  end  (by  swaling)  in  unneces- 
sary miseries,  unless  God  call  us  for  him  to  suffer,  whose 
our  breath  is,  and  hath  promised  to  such  as  hate  life  for 
him,  an  eternal.  Sir,  this  last  week,  I  read  an  ordinance 
of  both  houses,  (dated  third  month.  May  last)  decreeing 
death  to  some  consciences,  but  imprisonment  to  far  more, 
ever  (upon  the  point)  to  all  but  Presbyterians.  We  have 
a  sound,  that  Fairfax  and  Cromwell  are  proclaimed  traitors, 
but  I  rather  credit  that  report,  that  Cromwell  only  was  sent 
for  by  the  Parliament,  which,  it  seems,  inclines  with  the 
king,  and  the  city  all  against  the  army.  The  Earl  of  War- 
wick was  gone  for  Holland  with  twenty-two  ships  pursuing 
the  Prince.  Mr.  Foot  and  others  went  to  Holland,  (whither 
Mr.Trevice  his  ship  was  carried)  and  were  offered  the  ship  for 
two  thousand  pounds,  but  I  cannot  hear  of  their  agreement. 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  225 

About  forty  from  the  Parliament  went  to  the  King,  to  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  (who  was  lately  and  strangely  prevented  of 
escape)  to  treat,  but  could  not  agree  upon  the  first,  viz. 
that  the  King  should  acknowledge  the  beginning  of  the  war 
to  be  his.  Sir,  this  is  the  chief  of  matters  told  me  few 
days  since,  by  Mr.  Throgmorton,  who  came  ten  days  since 
from  the  Bay,  and  came  well  in  a  full  laden  vessel  to  anchor 
by  Saconet  rocks,  but  it  pleased  God  his  new  cable  was 
cut  by  the  rocks,  and  he  drove  upon  Rhode-Island  shore, 
where  it  is  feared  the  vessel  is  spoiled,  but  (through  God's 
mercy)  he  saved  his  goods.  Sir,  Mr.  Brewster,  (by  letter) 
requests  me  to  convey  three  letters  and  bags  of  metal  to 
you.  I  wish  they  may  have  worth  in  them,  especially  to 
draw  us  up  to  dig  into  the  heavens  for  true  treasure.  Sir, 
(though  Mr.  Brewster  wrote  me  not  word  of  it)  yet  in 
private,  I  am  bold  to  tell  you,  that  I  hear  it  hath  pleased 
God  greatly  to  afflict  him  in  the  thorns  of  this  life.  He  was 
intended  for  Virginia  ;  his  creditors  in  the  Bay  came  to 
Portsmouth  and  unhung  his  rudder,  carried  him  to  the  Bay, 
where  he  was  forced  to  make  over  all,  house,  land,  cattle, 
and  part  with  all  to  his  chest.  Oh  how  sweet  is  a  dry 
morsel  and  a  handful,  with  quietness  from  earth  and 
heaven.  Sane  nescio  de  quo  scribis  furti  suspecto.  John 
Jones  is  thought  here  to  be  false  or  faulty.  He  said  he  was 
your  servant,  that  you  gave  him  IO5.  in  peag  to  bear  his 
charges,  which  being  stolen  out  of  his  pocket,  he  borrowed 
so  much  of  me  here  in  your  name,  promising  to  pay  me  at 
his  return,  being  to  receive  money  for  you  in  the  Bay ;  he 
had,  also,  IO5.  more,  to  buy,  for  me,  two  or  three  necessa- 
ries. He  took  27s.  6d.  of  Valentine,  Mr.  Smith's  man, 
my  neighbor  at  the  trading  house,  for  a  drum,  which  he 
said  he  left  at  my  house  at  Providence,  which  drum  cost 
him  485.,  and  he  promised  to  send  it  by  an  Indian,  but 
refused,  and  offered  to  sell  it  again  at  Providence  ;  it  is 
now  attached. 

"  Mr.  Brewster  requested  me  to  pay  the  Bay  carriers, 
which  I  have  thus  ordered,  that  six  awl  blades  I  pay  to  a 
native  to  carry  to  Ninigret,  and  pray  you  to  pay  six  more 
to  him  that  brings  them  to  you.  I  am  sorry  you  had  no 
more  corn  from  Ninigret,  yet  glad  you  had  so  much,  for  I 
am  forced  to  pay  4s.  the  bushel  for  all  I  spend.  Sir,  I 
have  not  known  the  like  of  Indian  madness.  The  Father 
20 


226  MEMOIR     OF 

of  lights  cause  us  to  bless  him  for  and  with  our  reason,  re- 
membering Nebuchadnezzar. 

"  Sir,  I  desire  to  be  yours  ever  in  Christ  Jesus, 

"ROGER   WILLIAMS." 

In  March,  1648-9,  the  town  of  Providence  obtained  a 
charter  of  incorporation  from  the  General  Assembly.  [See 
Appendix  F.] 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  227 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Mr.  Coddington — letters  to  John  Winthrop — execution  of  Charles  I. 

The  unhappy  dissensions,  which  arose  among  the  lead- 
ing men  on  Rhode-Island,  were  a  source  of  disquietude  to 
Mr.  Williams,  and  of  injury  to  the  whole  colony.  The 
fierce  controversy  then  maintained  between  the  King  and 
Parliament,  in  England,  had  some  share  in  the  difficulties 
between  Mr.  Coddington  and  his  friends.  Mr.  Coddington 
was  attached  to  the  King,  and  was  disposed  to  uphold  his 
interest  in  the  colony. 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  which  is  without 
date,  but  which  appears,  from  internal  evidence,  to  have 
been  written  about  the  commencement  of  the  year  1648-9, 
refers  to  these  dissensions,  and  displays  the  pacific  temper 
of  Mr.  Williams  : 

"  For  his  much  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Win- 
throp, at  his  house  at  Nameug,  these. 

"  Caivcaiomsqussick. 
"  Sir, 

"  Best  salutations  presented  to  you  both,  with  humble 
desires,  that,  since  it  pleaseth  God  to  hinder  your  presence 
this  way,  he  may  please,  for  his  infinite  mercy's  sake,  in  his 
Son's  blood,  to  further  our  eternal  meeting  in  the  presence 
of  him  that  sits  upon  the  throne,  and  the  Lamb  forever ; 
and  that  the  hope  thereof  may  be  living,  and  bring  forth 
the  fruits  of  love  where  it  is  possible,  and  of  lamenting  for 
obstructions.  Sir,  the  affairs  of  our  country  (Vaderland, 
as  the  Dutch  speak)  would  have  afforded  us  much  confer- 
ence. The  merciful  Lord  help  us  to  make  up  in  prayer  to 
his  holy  majesty,  &c.  Sir,  for  this  land,  our  poor  colony 
is  in  civil  dissension.  Their  last  meetings,  at  which  I  have 
not  been,  have  fallen  into  factions;  Mr.  Coddington  and 
Captain  Partridge,  &c.  are  the  heads  of  the  one,  and  Cap- 
tain Clarke,  Mr.  Easton,  &c.  the  heads  of  the  other  fac- 
tion. I  receive  letters  from  both,  inviting  me,  &lc.  but  I 
resolve  (if  the  Lord  please)  not  to  engage,  unless  with  great 


228  MEMOIR     OF 

hopes  of  peace-making.  The  peace  makers  are  sons  of 
God.  Our  neighbors,  the  Narragansets,  are  now  consult- 
ing, and  making  peag,  to  carry,  within  a  few  weeks,  anoth- 
er payment.  Sir,  about  a  month  since,  one  William 
Badger,  a  seaman,  and  now  a  planter  at  William  Field's 
farm,  near  Providence,  passed  by  me,  travelling  to  the  Sea- 
brook.  I  have  received  letters  since  from  Captain  Mason, 
to  whom  I  wrote  by  him,  and  hear  nothing  of  him.  I  fear 
he  miscarried,  for  he  was  alone,  without  a  guide.  And, 
since  I  mention  Captain  Mason,  worthy  Sir,  I  humbly  beg 
of  the  Father  of  Lights  to  guide  you,  in  your  converse  and 
neighborhood  with  him.  In  his  letters  to  me,  he  tells  me 
of  some  extraordinary  lifts  against  Uncas,  and  that  he  will 
favor  him,  but  no  more  than  religion  and  reason  bid  him. 
He  promiseth  to  visit  me,  in  his  passage,  this  summer,  east- 
ward, (I  guess  he  means  toward  Plymouth.)  I  shall  then 
argue,  if  God  will,  many  things,  and  how  it  stands  with 
religion  and  reason,  that  such  a  monstrous  hurry  and  af- 
frightment  should  be  offered  to  an  English  town,  either  by 
Indians  or  English,  unpunished.  Sir,  you  have  seen  many 
parts  of  this  world's  snowball,  and  never  found  aught  but 
vanity  and  vexation.  At  Nameug  shall  you  find  no 
more,  except  in  the  fountain  of  living  waters.  Sir,  heap 
coald  of  fire  on  Captain  Mason's  head;  conquer  evil  with 
good,  but  be  not  cowardly,  and  overcome  with  any  evil. 

"  If  you  have  by  you  the  Trial  of  Wits,  at  convenience, 
spare  it  me  a  few  days.  However,  study,  as  the  Lord  com- 
mands, your  quietness,  for  which  I  shall  ever  pray  and  en- 
deavor. 

'^  Your  worship's  unfeigned, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

Mr.  Coddington,  having  failed  in  his  endeavors  to  detach 
the  island  from  the  colony,  and  unite  it  to  Plymouth,  re- 
solved to  proceed  to  England,  and  procure  a  separate  char- 
ter for  the  island.  The  following  letter,  dated  January  29, 
1648-9,  mentions  his  departure,  without  any  allusion  to 
his  object,   which,  perhaps,  was  not  then  known  : 

"  For  his  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  Nameug. 

"  Caivcaivi?isqussick,  29,  II,  48.  {so  called.) 
"  Sir, 

"  Best  salutations  and  wishes  to  the  Father  of  mercies  for 


Roger    w  i  l  l  i  a  m  s.  229 

your  worthy  self,  yoke  fellow,  sister,  &dc.  It  must  be  so  in 
this  world's  sea,  Sicut  fluctus  fluctum,  sic  luctus  luctum 
sequitiir.  And  every  day  hath  his  sufficiency  or  fulness  of 
evil  to  all  the  children  of  the  first  sinful  man  ;  no  persons, 
no  places,  exempted  from  the  reach  of  the  first  curse.  My 
humble  desire  is  to  the  most  righteous  and  only  wise  Judge, 
that  the  wood  of  Christ's  gallows  (as  iti  Moses'  act)  may 
be  cast  into  all  your  and  our  bitter  waters,  that  they  be 
sweet  and  wholesome  instructers  of  the  fruits  of  sin,  the 
sorrows  of  others  abroad,  (in  our  England's  Aceldama,) 
our  own  deservings  to  feel  upon  ourselves,  bodies  and  souls, 
(wives  and  children  also,)  not  by  barbarians,  but  devils, 
and  that  eternally,  sorrows  inexpressible,  inconceivable, 
and  yet,  if  Christ's  religion  be  true,  unavoidable,  but  by 
the  blood  of  a  Savior,  &c.  Sir,  pardon  me,  this  is  not  the 
matter.  Sir,  your  letters  I  speedily  despatched  by  a  mes- 
senger on  purpose.  For  a  place,  I  know  indeed  of  one  in 
Plymouth  claim,  and  would  specify,  but  that  your  spirit  be- 
ing troubled,  countermanded  it  again,  in  your  postscript  con- 
cerning Elderkin,  whom  I  will,  if  God  will,  effectually  labor 
with,  and  write  the  issue  with  speed.  All  our  neighbors, 
the  barbarians,  run  up  and  down,  and  consult;  partly 
suspecting  like  dealings  ;  partly  ready  to  fall  upon  the  Mo- 
hegans,  at  your  word,  and  a  world  of  foolish  agitations,  I 
could  trouble  you  with,  but  I  told  the  chiefest  yesterday, 
that  it  is  not  our  manner  to  be  rash,  and  that  you  will  be 
silent  till  your  father  and  other  ancient  sachems  speak  first, 
&c.  Sir,  concerning  the  bags  of  ore,  it  is  of  Rhode-Island, 
where  is  certainly  affirmed  to  be  both  gold  and  silver  ore, 
upon  trial.  Mr.  Coddington  went  to  the  Bay,  with  his 
daughter,  for  England,  and  left  Captain  Partridge  in  trust 
with  all,  the  last  vv^eek,  at  Newport.  George  Wright,  alias 
Captain  Wright,  stabbed  with  a  pike,  Walter  Lettice,  at 
Newport,  and  is  in  prison  ;  the  other,  if  not  dead,  not  like 
to  live. 

"  Sir,  yours  ever,  in  all  unfeigned  respect,  &c. 

"ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  I  want  wax  to  seal,  otherwise  I  would  have  expressed 
something,  which  I  reserve  till  another  season,  if  the  Lord 
wiU." 

In  March  following,  Mr.  Williams  again  wrole  (o  Mr. 
20* 


230  MEMOIR    OP 

Winthrop.  In  this  letter,  he  mentioned,  that  he  had  been 
elected  Deputy  President,  in  consequence  of  the  absence 
of  Mr.  Coddington. 

"  For  the  worshipful,  his  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Win- 
throp, at  Nameug. 

"  Cmvcmojnsqussick,  1,  48  {so  called.) 
"  Sir, 

"  Best  respects  and  love  presented,  and  thanks  hearty  for 
your  letters,  former  and  latter,  all  now  received.  I  am 
again  importuned  by  our  neighbor  sachems,  having  heard 
of  Wequashcook's  carrying  of  peag  to  Captain  Mason,  to 
pray  you  to  inform  them  whether  that  peag  be  part  of  the 
payment ;  because  Wequashcook  and  his  company  refuse 
to  pay.  They  desire  me  also  to  write  to  the  Bay  about  it, 
which  I  defer  to  do  until  their  payments  go,  which  are 
something  delayed  because  of  the  death  of  Ninigret's  wife's 
mother,  which  is  the  same  you  write  of,  Wequashcook's 
mother,  and  it  is  now  qunnantacaun,  that  is,  lamentation. 
Sir,  since  I  wrote  to  you,  our  four  towns  met  by  deputies, 
six  out  of  a  town.  This  Court  last  week  wrote  to  me  in- 
formation of  their  choice  of  myself  Deputy  President,  in 
the  absence  of  the  President,  who,  whether  they  have  fixed 
on  yourself,  or  Mr.  Coddington's  faction  prevail  to  keep  his 
name  in,  now  gone  for  England,  I  cannot  yet  learn,  but  I 
have  excused  myself  for  some  reasons,  and  I  hope  they 
have  chosen  better.  I  wrote  to  them  about  an  act  of  ob- 
livion, which,  blessed  be  the  God  of  peace,  they  have  past, 
and  have  appointed  a  Court  of  election  in  the  third  month, 
at  Warwick.  Sir,  I  am  exceeding  glad  of  your  begin- 
nings at  Pawcatuck.  I  pray  fail  not  to  inquire  whether 
there,  or  from  Mohegan  or  Connecticut,  you  can  help  me 
to  one  hundred  bushels  of  Indian  corn.  To  your  dear 
yokefellow  and  sister  respective  salutation.  The  sun  of 
righteousness  graciously  shine  on  you.  I  desire,  unfeigned- 
ly,  to  be  your  worship's  unfeigned  in  love, 

"R.  W. 

"  The  sachems  pray  you  to  tell  them  whether  their  peag 
will  be  sold  at  under  rates,  as  Pumhommin,  coming  two 
days  since  from  the  Bay,  informs  them,  viz.  that  they  must 
pay  great  black  at  thirteen  to  the  penny,  and  small  black 
at  fifteen,   and  white  eight  to  the   penny.     I  tell  them  the 


HOGEIR.     WILLIAMS.  231 

last  year  it  was  measured,  and  so  word  was  sent  to  me  they 
should  pay  it  by  measure." 

Another  letter,  written  about  this  time,  will  be  inserted 
here.  It  treats  of  the  usual  topic,  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  Indians  : 

'"  For  his  honored,   kind  friend,   Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at 
Pequod.* 
"  Sir, 

"  I  am  the  more  easily  persuaded  by  this  barbarian 
prince,  Ninigret,  to  trouble  you  so  often,  that  I  may  the 
oftener  hear  of  your  welfare,  and  at  present  how  it  pleased 
God  to  bring  you  home  to  yours  again.  Upon  your  word> 
Ninigret  prays  you  to  send  him  word,  whether  within  ten  days 
of  this  5th  of  the  week  present,  you  will  please  to  meet  him 
at  Wequatucket,  so  it  be  when  Mr.  Stanton  is  present.  He 
would  confer  about  Mr.  Eliot's  letter  and  coat,  about  We^ 
quashcook's  usurping  at  Pawcatuck,  about  his  present  hunt- 
ing, about  the  present  disposal  of  the  Pequod  fields^  about 
his  letters  to  the  Bay,  which,  in  your  name,  I  have  almost 
persuaded  to  suspend  until  the  meeting  of  the  commission- 
ers at  Boston.  Here  is  now  a  great  hurry  made  by  An- 
quontis,  one  of  those  petty  sachems,  of  whom  Mr.  Eliot 
wrote  to  you  and  me.  He  hath  offered  great  abuse  to  one 
of  the  chief,  and  Ninigret  is  now  going  to  Conanicut  about 
him.  I  persuade  not  to  engage  themselves,  but  to  send  him 
to  the  Bay  with  my  letter.  Sir,  loving  respects  to  Mrs, 
Winthrop,  Mrs.  Lake,  whom  God  graciously,  with  your 
loving  self  and  yours,  bind  up  in  the  bundle  of  that  life, 
which  is  eternal  in  Christ  Jesus,  in  whom  I  desire  to  be, 
"  Yours  ever, 

''ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  following  letter  alludes  to  a  narrow  escape  from 
death,  which  Mr.  Williams  met  with,  in  his  passage  in  a 
canoe,  from  Providence  to  Narraganset.  His  habitual 
piety  is  here  exhibited  in  a  manner  the  more  satisfactory,  be- 
cause it  is  evidently  the  unstudied  emanation  of  his  feel- 


*  This  letter  is  without  a  date.     It  was,  perhaps,  written  in  March 
or  April,  1649. 


232  MEMOIR     OF 

*'  For  the  worshipful  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at  Pequod, 
*'  Narraganset,  9,  3,  49,  [so  called.) 
'^  Sir, 

"  Best  salutations  and  wishes  presented  to  your  dearest, 
with  yourself,  &c.  These  enclosed  came  to  my  hand  in 
two  several  letters  from  the  Bay  enclosed,  your  brother  in  a 
letter  from  him,  requesting  my  help,  &.c.  I  have,  there- 
fore, speeded  them  by  the  sachems,  who  will,  therefore,  ex- 
pect some  word  of  tidings  from  the  Bay,  which  you  may 
please  to  signify,  in  one  line  to  me.  Whatever  you  hear, 
or  can  well  collect,  will  be  any  word  of  tidings,  &c.,  by 
which  occasion  (if  you  have  occasion)  )'ou  may  well  re- 
scribe.  Benedict  was  desired  by  the  magistrates  in  the 
Bay  to  take  special  care  to  charge  Wequashcook,  concern- 
ing* .  He  hath  requested  this  task  from  me,  which 
this  morning  I  purpose  to  do  (with  God's  help)  carefully. 
Sir,  two  days  since,  my  boat  not  being  fitted,  coming  from 
Providence,  I  was  (in  articulo  temporis)  snatched  by  a 
merciful,  and,  some  say,  a  miraculous  hand,  from  the  jaws 
of  death.  The  canoe  being  overset,  some  goods,  to  some 
value,  were  sunk,  some  whereof  I  hope,  if  God  please,  to 
recover.  However,  blessed  be  God,  and  blessed  are  such 
whom  he  correcteth  and  teacheth  in  him.  Yours  he  gra- 
ciously make  me,  though  unworthy. 

''ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  following  letter  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  affording  a 
slight  intimation  of  that  deficiency  of  paper  and  other  ar- 
ticles, which  the  exclusion  from  intercourse  with  Boston 
occasioned.  This  letter  was  written  on  the  envelope,  or 
blank  side,  of  one  addressed  to  the  writer,  as  is  evident 
from  the  direction,  which  stood  originally  thus  :  "  To  my 
much  respected  friend,  Mr.  Roger  Williams."  Mr.  AVil- 
liams  struck  out  his  own  name,  and  put  in  the  place  of 
it,  "  John  Winthrop,  at  Pequod,"  in  a  blacker  ink. 

*  ''  Concerning."  Though  the  original  of  this  letter  is  much  torn, 
the  blank  following  the  above  word  is  the  only  one  which  I  was  not 
able  satisfactorily  to  make  out  or  supply.  The  fragments  of  a  few 
letters  look  more  like  parts  of  the  word  ''  Nenekunat"  (Ninigret) 
than  any  other.  Between  that  sachem  and  Wequashcook,  as  ap- 
pears from  another  letter  of  Roger  Williams,  there  was  a  misunder- 
standing. G. 


HOGER     WILLIAMS.  233 

•'  To  my  much  respected  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at 
Pequod. 

''  13,  3,  49,  (so  called.) 
"  Sir, 

*'  Salutations,  &lc,  ' 

*'  Your  last  letter,  which  you  mention,  I  sent  by  the  way 
of  the  English,  since  I  came  hither  from  Providence.  I 
know  of  no  letter  of  yours,  that  came  back,  as  you  write. 
One  of  mine  to  yourself,  when  you  were  in  the  Bay,  was 
met  by  the  peag  messengers  from  the  Bay,  and  brought  by 
them  again  to  my  hand,  because,  as  they  conceived,  the 
whole  about  Uncas,  his  wounding,  was  not  yet,  as  then, 
known,  which,  at  your  coming  hither,  by  the  English  rela- 
tion, was  perfected.  Tidings  from  Uncas  are,  that  the  Eng- 
lish come  from  the  Bay  to  Hartford  about  Uncas,  and  are 
appointed  to  take  this  way,  and  to  take  Ninigret  with 
them,  AquawGce  (Wepiteammock)  is  at  the  point  of 
death.  Expectat  nos  mors  ubique;  cur  non  nos  mortem? 
In  life  and  death  the  Son  of  God  shine  on  us.  In  him, 
"  Yours  I  desire  to  be,  ever  unfeigned, 

^^  ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

In  May,  1649,  the  General  Court  met  at  Warwick,  when 
Mr.  John  Smith  was  chosen  President,  Mr,  Williams  hav- 
ing, as  it  appears  declined  a  re-election.  Among  the 
assistants  chosen,  was  Mr.  Gorton.  Mr.  Williams  was 
chosen  "  to  take  a  view  of  the  records  delivered  into  the 
Court  by  Mr.  William  Dyre,"  referring,  probably,  to  his 
complaints  against  Mr.  Coddington.  These  complaints 
were  again  presented  to  the  Court,  but  were  deferred,  in 
consequence,  we  may  suppose,  of  the  absence  of  Mr.  Cod- 
dington. 

At  this  Court,  a  law  was  made,  that  if  a  President  should 
be  elected,  and  should  refuse  to  serve,  he  should  be  fined 
ten  pounds,  and  an  assistant,  in  like  circumstances,  five 
pounds.  We  may  infer,  from  this  law,  that  the  men  of 
those  times  were  either  too  humble  to  covet  the  honors,  or 
too  poor  to  sustain  the  expenses,  of  office.  The  want  of 
ambition  may,  perhaps,  be  fairly  considered,  as  the  chief 
cause.  It  would  be  happy  for  our  country,  if  a  portion  of 
this  temper  of  our  ancestors,  were  inherited  by  their  de- 
scendants. The  furious  struggle  for  power  is  one  of  the 
most  ominous  evils  in  our  free  republic. 


234  MEMOIR   or 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Williams  was  written  a 
few  days  after  the  session  of  the  Court,  It  is  interesting, 
for  several  reasons.  The  excellent  regulation,  forbidding 
the  sale  or  gift  of  spirituous  liquors  to  the  natives,  except 
at  the  discretion  of  Mr.  Williams,  shows,  at  once,  the 
wise  and  humane  policy  of  the  colony  towards  the  natives, 
and  the  confidence  which  they  placed  in  him. 

This  letter  is  remarkable,  too,  for  the  notice  which  it 
contains  of  the  execution  of  Charles  I.,  who,  on  the  30th 
of  January  preceding,  was  beheaded  at  Whitehall,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  sentence  of  his  judges.  That  Charles  had 
forfeited  his  crown,  will  scarcely  be  denied  by  any  man  at 
the  present  day,  unless  he  be  an  advocate  for  arbitrary  rule. 
That  the  unhappy  King  did  not  deserve  to  die,  v/ill  now, 
perhaps,  with  almost  equal  unanimity,  be  maintained,  ex- 
cept by  those  whose  political  principles  bias  their  judg- 
ment, and  silence  the  emotions  of  their  hearts.  Of  the 
inexpediency  of  the  execution,  the  effects  are  the  best 
proof.  The  reaction,  which  was  produced  in  the  feelings 
of  the  nation,  was,  doubtless,  one  of  the  causes  of  the  res- 
toration, and  of  the  consequent  evils.  The  letter  was  en- 
dorsed by  Mr.  Winthrop,  "Mr.  Williams,  of  the  high  news 
about  the  King." 

"  For  his  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  Nameug,  these, 

"  Nar.  26,  3,  49,  (so  called.) 
•'  Sir, 

"  Loving  respects  to  your  dear  self,  and  dearest,  &c. 
This  last  of  the  week,  in  the  morning,  your  man  and  all 
his  charge  are  come  just  now  to  me  in  safety.  I,  myself, 
also  came  hither  late  last  night,  and  wet,  from  Warwick, 
where  this  colony  met,  and  upon  discharge  of  my  service, 
we  chose  Mr.  Joseph  Smith,  of  AVarwick,  (the  merchant  or 
shop-keeper  that  lived  at  Boston)  for  this  year.  President. 
Some  were  bold  (though  Capt.  Clarke  was  gone  to  the  Bay 
and  absent)  to  use  your  name,  and  generally  applauded 
and  earnestly  desired,  in  case  of  any  possible  stretching^ 
our  bounds  to  you,  or  your  drawing  near  to  us,  though  but 
to  Pawca^uck.  One  law  passed,  that  the  natives  should 
no  longer  abuse  us,  but  that  their  black  should  go  with  us, 
as  with  themselves,  at  four  per  penny.  All  wines  and  strong- 
waters  forbidden  the  natives  throughout  the  colony,  only  ti 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  235 

privilege  betrusted  in  my  hand,  to  spare  a  little  for  neces- 
sities, &c. 

"  Sir,  tidings  are  high  from  England  ;  many  ships  from 
many  parts  say,  and  a  Bristol  ship,  come  to  the  Isle  of 
Shoals  within  a  few  days,  confirms,  that  the  King  and  many 
great  Lords  and  Parliament  men  are  beheaded.  London 
was  shut  up  on  the  day  of  execution,  not  a  door  to  be 
opened,  &c.  The  States  of  Holland  and  the  Prince  of 
Orange  (forced  by  them)  consented  to  proceedings.  It  is 
said  Mr.  Peters  preached  (after  the  fashion  of  England) 
the  funeral  sermon  to  the  King,  after  sentence,  out  of  the 
terrible  denunciation  to  the  King  of  Babylon.  Esa.  14 : 
18,  &c, 

"  Your  letter  to  your  brother  I  delivered  to  Mr.  Gold, 
(going  to  Boston;)  this  weather,  I  presume,  hinders.  Mr. 
Andrews,  a  gentleman  of  Warwick,  told  me,  that  he  came 
from  the  Bay,  where  he  heard  that  the  Bay  had  proclaimed 
war  with  the  Narragansets.  I  hope  it  is  but  mistaken  ; 
and  yet  all  under,  and  while  we  are  under  the  sun,  nothing 
but  vanity  and  vexation. 

"  The  most  glorious  Sun  of  Righteousness  shine  gra- 
ciously on  us.     In  him  I  desire  to  be,  Sir,  ever  yours, 

^' ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  following  letter  is,  on  many  accounts,  honorable  to 
Mr.  Williams.     It  needs  no  comment : 

*'  CawcawmsqussicJc,  13,  4,  49,  (so  called.) 

'^  Sir, 
''  Best  salutations,  &c.  The  last  night  one  of  Wequash- 
cook's  Pequods  brought  me,  very  privately,  letters  from 
Capt.  Mason,  (and,  as  he  said,  from  Uncas  and  Wequash- 
cook.)  The  letters  are  kind  to  myself,  acknowledging 
loving  letters  (and  tokens,  which,  upon  the  burning  of  his 
house,)  he  had  received  from  me,  &c. ;  but  terrible  to  all 
these  natives,  especially  to  the  sachems,  and  most  of  all, 
to  Ninigret.  The  purport  of  the  letters  and  concurrence 
of  circumstances,  seem  to  me  to  imply  some  present  con- 
clusions (from  Connecticut)  of  hostility,  and  I  question 
whether  or  no  present  and  speedy,  before  the  meeting  of 
commissioners,  which  I  saw  lately  from  the  Court,  under 
Mr.  Nowell's  hand,  was  not  to  be  till  the  7th  month.     The 


236  MEMOIR    or 

murdering  of  Uncas  is  alleged  by  stabbing,  and  since  at- 
tempted by  witches,  &c.  The  conclusion  is  therefore 
ruin.  The  words  of  the  letter  are :  '  If  nothing  but 
blood  will  satisfy  them^  I  doubt  not  but  they  may  have 
their  fill ;  and  again,  I  perceive  such  an  obstinate  wilful- 
nesSy  joined  with  desperate  malicious  practices,  that  I 
think  and  believe  thei/  are  sealed  to  destruction.^  Sir, 
there  are  many  devices  in  a  man's  hearty  but  the  counsel 
of  Jehovah  shall  stand.  If  he  have  a  holy  and  righteous 
purpose  to  make  us  drink  of  our  mother's  cup,  the  holi- 
ness, nor  power,  nor  policy  of  New-England,  can  stop  his 
hand  :  He  be  pleased  to  prevent  it,  if  not  to  sweeten  it. 

"Sir,  I  pray,  if  you  have  aught,  signify   in   a  line,   and 
you  shall  not  fail  of  my  poor  papers  and  prayers. 
"  Your  unfeigned^ 

"R.  W. 

"  Your  letters  and  friends  were  here  some  days  with  me. 
This  la&t  choice  at  Warwick  (according  to  my  soul's  wish 
and  endeavor)  hath  given  me  rest.  Others  are  chosen, 
Mr.  John  Clarke,  at  Newport,  to  whom,  and  all  my  friends 
on  the  island,  I  wrote  effectually.  Thither  they  went.  I 
have  heard  nothing  since.  If  power  had  been  with  me, 
such  a  work  of  mercy,  (although  to  strangers)  I  hope,  by 
the  Lord's  assistance,  shall  not  escape  me ;  and  I  have 
promised  my  assistance  to  Mr.  Clarke  and  others,  at  New- 
port, if  any  blame  or  damage  befal  them  from  the  colony 
or  elsewhere. 

"  Sir,  I  forgot  to  thank  you  for  the  pamphlets,  although 
(not  having  been  lately  at  Providence)  I  have  them  not ; 
but  I  have  sent  for  them.  I  have  here  now  with  me  my 
eldest  daughter,  of  seventeen.  Her  younger  sister,  of  fif- 
teen, haik  had  nature's  course  before  her,  which  she  want- 
ing, a  flux  of  rheum  hath  much  affected  her  head  and  right 
eye ;  she  hath  taken  much  physic,  and  been  let  blood,  but 
yet  no  change.  She  is  advised  by  some  to  the  Bay.  I 
pray  advise  me  to  whom  you  judge  fittest  to  address  unto 
of  the  Bay  physicians. 

"  Sir,  I  hear  a  smith  of  your  town  hath  left  you,  and 
saith  I  sent  for  him.  It  is  most  untrue,  though  we  want 
one  at  Providence,  yet  I  should  condemn  in  myself,  or  any, 
to  invite  any  convenience  or  commodity  from  our  friends. 
I  know   him  not,  nor  ever  spake  (to  my  knowledge)  about 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  237 

him.  Mr.  Throgmorton  hath  lately  brought  in  some  corn 
from  Hemstead  and  those  parts,  but  extraordinary  dear.  I 
pay  him  6s.  for  Indian,  and  85.  for  wheat.  These  rains,  if 
God  please  to  give  peace,  promise  hopes  of  plenty. 

"  Two  days  since,  letters  from  my  brother.  He  saith  a 
ship  was  come  to  the  Bay  from  England.  She  was  not 
come  yet  in  the  river.  A  lighter  went  aboard,  and  brought 
the  confirmation  of  the  King's  death,  but  no  other  particu- 
lars.    The  everlasting  King  of  kings  shine  on  us,  &c." 


21 


M  £  IM  O  i  U     01-' 


CHAPTER  XIX 


Warwick — Mr.  Williams'  compensation — imprisonment  of  John 
Clarke  and  Obadiah  Holmes — Mr.  Coddington's  separate  charter — - 
Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  prepare  to  go  to  England, 

It  has  been  seen,  that  although  Warwick  was  not  named 
in  the  charter,  yet  that  settlement,  having  obtained  from 
England  the  sanction  of  the  commissioners,  had  joined  with 
the  other  towns,  in  forming  a  civil  government.  But  a 
portion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Pawtuxet,  having  submitted 
themselves  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts,  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  authority  of  the  charter.  At  the  General 
Assembly,  at  Warwick,  in  May,  1649,  it  was  "  ordered^ 
that  a  messenger  be  sent  to  Pomham  and  the  other  sachem. 
to  require  them  to  come  to  this  Court ;  and  that  letters 
be  sent  to  Benedict  Arnold  and  his  father,  and  the  rest 
of  Pawtuxet,  about  their  subjecting  to  this  colony."  They 
persisted  in  their  refusal  ;  and,  although  the  territory  wa& 
undeniably  included  in  the  charter  obtained  by  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, yet  these  inhabitants  of  Pawtuxet  and  its  vicinity 
continued  for  several  years  to  resist  the  authority  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  Rhode-Island,  and  caused  much  an- 
noyance to  the  colony.  In  this  conduct,  they  were  upheld 
by  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  In  1650,  as  we  are 
informed  by  Mr.  Backus,*  "  William  Arnold  and  William 
Carpenter,  instead  of  submitting  to  the  government  of  their 
own  colony,  went  again  and  entered  complaints  against 
some  of  their  neighbors  to  the  Massachusetts  rulers,  and 
they  sent  a  citation  to  some  of  them  to  come  and  answer 
the  same  in  their  courts,  dated  from  Boston,  June  20,  1650, 
signed  by  Edward  Rawson,  Secretary. "t 

There  seems  to  have  been  much  disinclination  to  pay 
the  sum  voted  to  Mr.  Williams  for  his  services  in  procur- 
ing the  charter.  At  the  General  Assembly,  in  May,  1650, 
three  years  after  the  grant,  it  was  found  necessary  to  send 

*  Vol.  i.  p.  207.  t  Providence  Records. 


KOGER     WILLIAMS.  239 

^  fresh  order  to  the  towns  to  collect  and  pay  the  sums  due, 
within  twenty  days.  This  order  was  not  entirely  success- 
ful, and  it  is  nearly  certain,  that  the  whole  amount  was 
never  paid.  It  is  probable,  that  few  disputed  the  justice  of 
the  grant,  and  we  may  hope,  that  the  unhappy  jealousies 
which  subsisted  between  individuals,  and  some  of  the  towns, 
together  with  the  poverty  of  the  inhabitants,  rather  than  a 
deliberate  disregard  of  Mr.  Williams'  just  claims,  were  the 
causes  of  the  failure.  But  gratitude  has  not  been  the  most 
conspicuous  virtue,  either  of  kings  or  of  republics.  The 
patriotic  Winthrop  spent  his  large  estate,  and  his  life,  in 
the  service  of  Massachusetts ;  yet  was  he  compelled  to  sub- 
mit to  an  impeachment,  from  which,  however,  he  issued 
with  a  purer  fame.  It  is  a  lamentable  fact,  that  men  are 
often  imboldened  to  do,  in  concert,  what  they  would  not 
venture  to  do,  in  their  individual  capacity.  They  seem  to 
think,  that  they  lose  their  identity  in  a  crowd,  and  that  guilt, 
in  which  many  share,  becomes  so  divided  and  attenuated,  as 
to  leave  a  very  insignificant  portion  to  each  person.  Hu- 
man passions,  too,  are  contagious,  and  a  large  assembly 
sometimes  inflame  each  other  to  the  perpetration  of  deeds, 
of  which  each  man  would,  when  alone,  have  been  ashamed. 

The  memorable  transactions  in  Massachusetts,  in  which 
the  Rev.  John  Clarke,  Mr.  Obadiah  Holmes  and  Mr. 
John  Crandall*  had  so  melancholy  a  share,  deserve  a  notice. 
They  show  the  rigor,  with  M'hich  the  famous  law  of  1644, 
levelled  ostensibly  against  anabaptists,  was  executed  ;  and 
the  special  aversion  which  was  felt  towards  intruders  from 
Rhode-Island. 

In  July.  1651,  these  gentlemen  w€re  deputed  by  the 
Baptist  church  in  Newport,  to  visit  William  Witter,  an  aged 
member  of  that  church,  who  resided  at  Lynn,  a  few  miles 
east  of  Boston.  Mr.  Witter  was  an  old  man,  and  being 
unable  to  visit  the  church,  he  had  requested  an  interview 
with  some  of  his  brethren.     On  this  most  Christian  and  in- 


*  Rev.  Mr.  Clarke  was  the  founder  and  pastor  of  the  first  Baptist 
■church  in  Newport.  Mr.  Holmes  was,  a  short  time  before  these 
Iransactions,  presented  by  a  grand  jury  to  the  General  Court  at 
Plymouth,  because  he  and  a  few  others  had  set  up  a  Baptist  meeting 
in  Seekonk.  He  removed  to  Newport,  and  after  Dr.  Clarke's  death, 
was  his  successor,  as  Pastor.  He  had,  at  the  time  he  was  imprisoned 
and  whipped,  a  wife  and  eight  children. 


240  MEMOIR    OF 

offensive  errand,  the  committee  proceeded  to  Lynn.  Their 
aged  brother  resided  about  two  miles  from  the  town,  and  the 
next  day  being  the  Sabbath,  it  was  thought  proper  to  spend 
it  in  religious  worship  at  his  house.  Mr.  Clarke  preached 
from  Rev.  3:  10.  "Because  thou  hast  kept  the  word  of 
my  patience,  I  also  will  keep  thee  from  the  hour  of  tempta- 
tion, which  shall  come  upon  all  the  world,  to  try  them  that 
dwell  upon  the  earth."  In  the  midst  of  his  sermon,  he  was 
interrupted  by  two  constables.  Mr.  Clarke  thus  describes 
the  scene : 

"  While  in  conscience  towards  God,  and  good  will  unto 
his  saints,  I  was  imparting  to  my  companions  in  the  house 
where  I  lodged,  and  to  four  or  five  strangers  that  came  in 
unexpected  after  I  had  begun,  opening  and  proving  what 
is  meant  by  the  hour  of  temptation,  what  by  the  word  of 
his  patience,  and  their  keeping  it,  and  how  he  that  hath 
the  key  of  David  (being  the  promiser)  will  keep  those  who 
keep  the  word  of  his  patience,  from  the  hour  of  temptation. 
While,  I  say,  I  was  yet  speaking,  there  came  into  the  house 
where  we  were,  two  constables,  who,  with  their  clamorous 
tongues,  made  an  interruption  in  my  discourse,  and  more 
uncivilly  disturbed  us  than  the  pursuivants  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish bishops  were  wont  to  do,  telling  us  that  they  were  come 
with  authority  from  the  magistrate  to  apprehend  us.  I  then 
desired  to  see  the  authority  by  which  they  thus  proceeded, 
whereupon  they  plucked  forth  their  warrant,  and  one  of 
them,  with  a  trembling  hand,  (as  conscious  he  might  have 
been  better  employed)  read  it  to  us ;  the  substance  whereof 
was  as  followeth : 

'  By  virtue  hereof,  you  are  required  to  go  to  the  house 
of  William  Witter,  and  so  to  search  from  house  to  house, 
for  certain  erroneous  persons,  being  strangers,  and  them  to 
apprehend,  and  in  safe  custody  to  keep,  and  to-morrow 
morning,  at  eight  o'clock,  to  bring  before  me. 

'ROBERT  BRIDGES.'"* 

The  constables  carried  Mr.  Clarke  and  his  companions 
to  the  Congregational  meeting,  where  they  were  compelled 
to  stay  till  the  service  was  closed.  Mr.  Clarke  then  rose 
and  addressed  the  assembly,  but  was  speedily  silenced,  and 
the  next  day,  the  three  heretics  were  committed  to  prison  in 

*  BackuS}  vol.  i.  p.  215. 


tlOGER    WILLIAMS.  241 

Boston.  A  few  days  afterwards,  they  were  tried,  before 
the  Court  of  Assistants,  and  Mr.  Clarke  was  sentenced  to 
pay  a  fine  of  twenty  pounds,  Mr.  Hohnes  thirty  pounds,  and 
Mr.  Crandall  five  pounds ;  or,  in  default  of  payment,  each 
was  to  be  whipped.  They  refused  to  pay  the  fine,  for  the 
plain  reason,  that  the  payment  of  a  fine  is  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  guilt,  of  which  they  felt  themselves  to  be  innocent. 
They  were  accordingly  committed  to  prison. 

On  the  trial,  Mr.  Clarke  defended  himself  and  his  com- 
panions so  ably,  that  the  Court  were  somewhat  embarrassed. 
*'At  length,  (says  Mr.  Clarke)  the  Governor  stepped  up  and 
told  us  we  had  denied  infant  baptism,  and  being  somewhat 
transported,  told  me  I  had  deserved  death,  and  said  he 
would  not  have  such  trash  brought  into  their  jurisdiction. 
Moreover  he  said,  '  you  go  up  and  down,  and  secretly  in- 
sinuate into  those  that  are  weak,  but  you  cannot  maintain 
it  before  our  ministers.  You  may  try  and  dispute  with 
them.'  To  this  I  had  much  to  reply,  but  he  commanded 
the  jailer  to  take  us  away."* 

From  the  prison,  Mr.  Clarke  sent  to  the  Court  a  proposi- 
tion to  meet  with  any  of  the  ministers,  and  hold  a  public 
discussion.  This  proposal  was  at  first  accepted,  and  a  day 
was  fixed.  But  the  clergy  probably  thought,  that  a  public 
debate  about  infant  baptism,  with  so  able  an  antagonist, 
would  be  inexpedient.  Mr.  Clarke's  fine  was  accordingly 
paid,  without  his  knowledge  or  consent,  and  he  was  released 
from  prison.  He  was  anxious  for  an  opportunity  to  main- 
tain, publicly,  his  opinions,  and  to  vindicate  his  innocence. 
But  he  could  not  succeed  in  bringing  his  opponents  to  the 
trial  of  argument.  Leaving,  therefore,  with  the  magistrates 
a  declaration,  that  he  would  be  ready,  at  any  time,  to  visit 
Boston,  and  maintain  his  sentiments,  he,  together  with  Mr. 
Crandall,  who  was  released  on  condition  of  appearing  at 
the  next  Court,  returned  to  Newport. 

The  two  following  letters  from  Mr.  Williams  to  Mr.  Win- 
throp,  were  written  about  this  time,  probably  in  August, 
1651  : 

"  Sir, 
"  Loving  respects  to  you  both,  with  Mrs.  Lake  and  yours. 
By  this  opportunity  I  am  bold  to  inform  you,  that  from  the 

*  Benedict,  vol.  i.  p.  367. 
21* 


242  MEMoi;fi    OP 

Bay  I  hear  of  the  sentence  on  Mr.  Clarke,  to  be  whipf  6T 
pay  twenty  pounds,  Obadiah  Hohnes  whipt  or  thirty  pounds^ 
on  John  Crandall,  whipt  or  five  pounds.  This  bearer  hears 
of  no  payment  nor  execution,  but  rather  a  demur,  and  some 
kind  of  conference.  The  Father  of  Lights  graciously  guide 
them  and  us  in  such  paths  ;  for  other  succor  than  that  (in 
his  mouth)  Christ  Jesus  walks  not  among  the  churches, 
(Rev.  1.)  Sir,  upon  those  provocations  that  lately  (as  in 
my  last  I  hinted)  Auguontis  gave  the  sachems,  Ninigret, 
Pitammock  and  Pesiccosh,  went  in  person  to  their  town, 
(Chaubutick)  and  upon  Pummakommins  telling  the  sachems 
that  he  was  as  great  a  sachem  as  they,  they  all  fell  together 
by  the  ears ;  yet  no  blood  spilt.  The  Chaubatick  Indians 
send  to  the  Bay ;  they  say  Auguontis  is  sent  for  and  Nini- 
gret,  but  I  know  no  certain  other  than  messengers  passing 
to  and  again  from  Chaubatick  to  the  Bay.  Here  was  last 
week  Mr.  Sellick,  of  Boston,  and  Mr.  Gardiner,  a  young 
merchant,  to  fetch  my  corn,  and  more,  from  Mr.  Paine,  of 
Seekonk  ;  they  are  bound  to  the  French,  unless  diverted. 
They  tell  me  of  a  ship  of  300,  come  from  Barbadoes.  Mr. 
Wall,  the  master,  stood  upon  his  guard  while  he  staid 
there  ;  he  brought  some  passengers,  former  inhabitants  from 
London,  whose  case  was  sad  there,  because  of  the  posture 
of  the  island  (where,  as  I  have  by  letter  from  a  godly  friend 
there)  they  force  all  to  swear  to  religion  and  laws.  This 
Mr.  Wall  hath  a  new  and  great  design,  viz.  from  hence  to 
the  East  Indies.  The  frigates  designed  for  Barbadoes  were 
ordered  for  Scilly,  which  they  assaulted,  and  took  forts  and 
ordnance  and  frigates,  and  drove  the  Governor  into  his  last 
fort.  It  hath  pleased  God  to  bring  your  ancient  acquaint- 
ance and  mine,  Mr.  Coddington,  in  Mr.  Carwithy  his  ship 
of  500  ;  he  is  made  Governor  of  this  colony  for  his  life. 
General  Cromwell  was  not  wounded  nor  defeated,  (as  is 
said)  but  sick  of  flux  and  fever,  and  mending,  and  had  a 
victory  over  the  Scots.  Sir,  this  world  passeth  away  and 
the  ((rx,'K^»)  fashion,  shape  and  form  of  it,  only  the  word 
of  Jehovah  remains.  That  word  literal  is  sweet,  as  it  is  the 
field  where  the  mystical  word  or  treasure,  Christ  Jesus,  lies 
hid. 

"  In  Him  I  hope  to  be 

"Yours,  R.  W. 

"  Sir,  to  Mr.  Blindman  lovinor  salutations." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  243 

"For  his  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at 
Pequod. 
''  Sir, 

"Loving  respects,  &c.  Yours  received  and  the  105. 
from  your  neighbor  Elderkin,  and  letters,  which  shall  care- 
fully be  sent.  I  came  from  Providence  last  night,  and  was 
able,  by  God's  merciful  providence,  so  to  order  it,  that  I  was 
their  pilot  to  my  house  here,  from  whence  I  have  provided 
a  native,  who,  with  Joseph  Fosseker,  I  hope  will  bring  them 
safe  to  you.  The  merciful  Lord  help  you  and  me  to  say,  as 
Solomon,  all  that  comes  is  vanity  :  all  cattle,  all  goods,  all 
friends,  all  children,  Slc.  I  met  Mr.  John  Clarke,  at  Prov- 
idence, recens  c  car  cere.  There  was  great  hammering  about 
the  disputation,  but  they  could  not  hit,  and  although  (my 
much  lamented  friend)  the  Governor  told  him,  that  he  was 
vvorthy  to  be  hanged,  &c.  yet  he  was  as  good  as  thrust  out 
without  pay  or  whipping,  &/C. ;  but  Obadiah  Holmes 
remains.  Mr.  Carwithy  is  gone  with  his  ship  to  the 
eastward  for  masts,  and  returns,  three  weeks  hence,  to  set 
sail  for  England.  Sir,  I  have  a  great  suit  to  you,  that  at 
your  leisure  you  would  fit  and  send  something  that  you 
find  suitable  to  these  Indian  bodies,  in  way  of  purge  or 
vomit;  as,  also,  some  drawing  plaster,  and  if  the  charge 
rise  to  one  or  two  crowns,  I  shall  thankfully  send  it ;  and 
commending  you  and  yours  to  the  only  great  and  good 
Physician,*  desire.  Sir,  to  be  ever 

"  Yours  in  Him,         R.  W." 

Mr.  Holmes  was  confined  in  prison  till  September,  when 
thirty  stripes  were  inflicted  on  him,  with  such  merciless 
severity,  that  he  could  not,  for  a  considerable  time,  take 
any  rest,  except  by  supporting  himself  with  his  knees  and 
elbows.  Two  individuals  (John  Spur  and  John  Hazel,t) 
were  imprisoned  and  fined  for  the  grievous  offence  of  ex- 
hibiting some  sympathy  for  the  sufferer.  Mr.  Holmes  was 
released,  but  he  continued  in  Massachusetts,  and  baptized 

*  Mr.  Winthrop  had  considerable  skill  in  medicine.  The  benevo- 
lent zeal  of  Mr.  Williams  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians,  shows  itself 
on  all  occasions. 

+  Mr.  Hazel  was  an  old  man  of  threescore  years.  He  was  one  of 
Mr.  Holmes'  brethren,  from  Seekonk,  and  had  travelled  fifty  miles 
to  visit  him  in  prison.     The  old  man  died  before  he  reached  home. 


244  MEMOIR    OP 

several  individuals.     Warrants  were  again  issued  to  appre- 
hend him,  and  he  returned  home  to  his  family. 

The  recital  of  these  transactions  is  painful,  but  we  must 
compel  ourselves  to  contemplate  such  scenes,  if  we  would 
suitably  feel  the  contrast  between  the  policy  of  Massachu- 
setts, at  that  day,  and  the  tolerant  principles  of  Roger 
Williams.  To  that  policy  must  it  be  ascribed,  that  wise 
and  good  men  could  thus  treat  their  fellow  Christians.  It 
is  pleasing  to  know,  however,  that  this  conduct  was  not 
unanimously  approved,  by  those  who  were  free  from  all 
suspicion  of  anabaptism.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  one  of 
the  magistrates  of  Massachusetts,  then  in  England,  wrote 
thus  to  Messrs.  Cotton  and  Wilson : 

"  Reverend  and  dear  friends,  whom  I  unfeignedly  love 
and  respect : 

"  It  doth  not  a  little  grieve  my  spirit,  to  hear  what  sad 
things  are  reported  daily  of  your  tyranny  and  persecutions 
in  New-England,  as  that  you  fine,  whip  and  imprison  men 
for  their  consciences.  First,  you  compel  such  to  come  into 
your  assemblies  as  you  know  will  not  join  you  in  your  wor- 
ship, and  when  they  show  their  dislike  thereof,  or  witness 
against  it,  then  you  stir  up  your  magistrates  to  punish  them 
for  such  (as  you  conceive)  their  public  affronts.  Truly, 
friends,  this  your  practice  of  compelling  any  in  matters  of 
worship,  to  do  that  whereof  they  are  not  fully  persuaded, 
is  to  make  them  sin,  for  so  the  apostle  (Rom.  14  :  23)  tells 
us,  and  many  are  made  hypocrites  thereby,  conforming  in 
their  outward  man,  for  fear  of  punishment.  We  pray  for 
you,  and  vv^ish  you  prosperity  every  way,  hoping  the  Lord 
would  have  given  you  so  much  light  and  love  there,  that 
you  might  have  been  eyes  to  God's  people  here,  and  not  to 
practise  those  courses  in  a  wilderness,  which  you  went  so 
far  to  prevent.  These  rigid  ways  have  laid  you  very  low 
in  the  hearts  of  the  saints." 

Mr.  Cotton  replied  to  this  letter.  After  stating  that 
Mr.  Clarke  and  Mr.  Holmes  had  offended  against  the  "  order 
and  government  of  our  churches,  established,  we  hioic,  by 
God's  law,"  he  furnishes  this  remarkable  specimen  of 
sophistry:  "You  think,  to  compel  men  in  matters  of  wor- 
ship is  to  make  them  sin.  If  the  worship  be  lawful  in  itself, 
the  magistrate  compelling   him  to  come  to  it  compelleth 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  245 

him  not  to  sin,  but  the  sin  is  in  his  will  that  needs  to  be 
compelled  to  a  Christian  duty.  If  it  do  make  men  hyp- 
ocrites, yet  better  be  hypocrites  than  profane  persons. 
Hypocrites  give  God  part  of  his  dues,  the  outward  man ; 
but  the  profane  person  giveth  God  neither  outward  nor  in- 
ward man.  You  know  not,  if  you  think  we  came  into  this 
wilderness,  to  practise  those  courses  here,  which  we  fled 
from  in  England.  We  believe  there  is  a  vast  difference 
between  men's  inventions  and  God's  institutions.  We  fled 
from  men's  inventions,  to  which  we  else  should  have  been 
compelled.  We  compel  none  to  men's  inventions.  If  our 
ways  (rigid  ways,  as  you  caU  them,)  have  laid  us  low  in 
the  hearts  of  God's  people,  yea,  and  of  the  saints,  (as  you 
style  them)  we  do  not  believe  it  is  any  part *of  their  saint- 
ship.  Nevertheless,  I  tell  you  the  truth,  we  have  tolerated 
in  our  churches  some  anabaptists,  some  antinomians,  and 
some  seekers,  and  do  so  still,  at  this  day.  We  are  far 
from  arrogating  infallibility  of  judgment  to  ourselves,  or 
affecting  uniformity.  Uniformity  God  never  required ;  in- 
fallibility he  never  granted  us."  * 

There  is,  in  this  reply,  somewhat  more  of  asperity  than 
Mr.  Cotton's  writings  usually  exhibit.  It  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive, that  the  good  man's  spirit  was  cliafed  by  the  rebuke 
from  one  of  his  own  friends.  Nothing  tries  a  man's  tem- 
per more  than  reproof,  when  he  is  secretly  convinced 
that  he  has  done  wrong,  and  is  yet  unprepared  to  acknowl- 
edge it.  It  is  a  sore  task  to  defend  himself,  when  his  con- 
science is  on  the  side  of  the  accuser.  In  such  a  case,  a 
man  is  apt  to  resort  to  confident  and  emphatic  assertions, 
rather  than  to  calm  arguments. 

We  have  mentioned  Mr.  Coddington's  visit  to  England, 
for  the  purpose  of  procuring  a  charter  for  the  islands  of 
Rhode-Island,  Canonicut,  &c.  He  procured  from  the 
Council  of  State,  which  then  wielded  the  executive  power 
in   England,!   a  commission,  dated   April   3,    1651,    and 


•■  Benedict,  vol.  i.  p.  377. 

t  Mr.  Neal  (vol.  iv.  cli.  1)  says,  that  after  the  death  of  Charles  I. 
the  House  of  Commons  assumed  the  government,  '•  the  House  of 
Lords  was  voted  useless,  and  the  office  of  a  king  unnecessary,  bur- 
densome and  dangerous.  The  form  of  government  for  the  future 
y\^as  declared  to  be  a  free  commonwealth,  the  executive  power  lodged 
in  the  hands  of  a  Council  of  State  of  forty  persons,  with  full  power 


246  MEMOIR     OF 

signed  by  John  Bradshaw,  constituting  Mr.  Coddington 
governor  of  the  islands,  and  empowering  him  to  rule  them, 
with  a  council  of  six  men,  nominated  by  the  people,  and 
approved  by  himself 

Mr.  Coddington  returned  about  the  first  of  August,  1651. 
His  new  charter  at  once  subverted  tiie  existing  govern- 
ment, by  severing  the  islands  from  the  other  towns.  Much 
agitation  of  feeling  naturally  ensued.  Those  inhabitants 
of  the  islands,  who  were  opposed  to  Mr.  Coddington's 
measures,  were  alarmed  at  finding  themselves  thus  sub- 
jected to  his  power.  The  towns  of  Warwick  and  Provi- 
dence were  annoyed  by  the  inhabitants  of  Pawtuxet,  con- 
sisting of  whites  and  Indians,  who  rejected  the  government 
of  Rhode-Island,  and  adhered  to  that  of  Massachusetts. 
The  Indians  committed  many  depredations,  and  offered 
many    insults,   which    neither   the   General   Assembly   of 

to  take  care  of  the  whole  administration  for  one  year.  New  keepers 
of  the  great  seal  were  appointed,  from  whom  the  judges  received 
their  commissions.  The  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy  were 
abolished,  and  a  new  one  appointed,  called  the  engagement,  which 
was,  to  be  true  and  faithful  to  the  government  established,  without 
King  or  House  of  Peers." 

As  great  a  change  took  place  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  Episcopacy 
was  abolished,  by  law,  in  1646 ;  a  Directory  was  substituted  for  the 
Liturgy,  a  large  part  of  the  livings  were  distributed  among  the 
Presbyterian  clergy,  and  finally,  in  1649,  Presbyterianism  was  de- 
clared, by  act  of  Parliament,  to  be  the  established  religion.  The 
Presbyterians  were  fully  as  tenacious  of  the  divine  right  of  their 
polity  as  the  Episcopalians  were  of  theirs ;  and  Dissenters  were 
treated  with  nearly  as  much  rigor  under  the  Presbyterian  rule,  as 
they  were  by  the  Prelates.  The  Presbyterians  refused  to  grant  tol- 
eration to  the  Independents,  and  insisted  on  their  submission.  A 
number  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  and  elders  in  London  publish- 
ed a  piece,  in  1649,  "  in  which  they  represent  the  doctrine  of  univer- 
sal toleration  as  contrary  to  godliness,  opening  a  door  to  libertinism 
and  profaneness,  and  a  tenet  to  be  rejected  as  a  soul  poison."  The 
ministers  of  Lancashire  published  a  paper,  in  1648,  in  which  they 
remonstrated  against  toleration,  ''  as  putting  a  cup  of  poison  into  the 
hands  of  a  child,  and  a  sword  into  that  of  a  madman ;  as  letting 
loose  madmen,  with  firebrands  in  their  hands,  and  appointing  a  city 
of  refuge  in  men's  consciences  for  the  devil  to  fly  to  ;  and  instead  of 
providing  for  tender  consciences,  taking  away  all  conscience." 
Neal,  vol.  iii.  p.  313.  The  Presbyterians  might  well  dislike  Crom- 
well, who  curbed  their  intolerant  spirit.  They  had  time  for  reflec- 
tion, when,  at  the  restoration,  the  Episcopal  clergy  expelled  thou- 
sands of  them  from  their  livings,  and  treated  them  as  they  had 
treated  their  Independsnt  brethren. 


ROGER     WILI-IAMS.  247 

Rhode-Island,  nor  the  towns  of  Providence  and  Warwick, 
could  either  prevent  or  punish.  The  government  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  the  commissioners  of  the  united  colonies, 
refused  to  remedy  these  evils,  unless  Warwick  would  sub- 
mit to  the  jurisdiction  of  Plymouth  or  Massachusetts,  and 
finally  the  commissioners  advised  the  Plymouth  colony  to 
take  possession  of  Warwick  by  force,  if  necessary. 

In  this  distressed  state  of  the  colony,  the  separation  oc- 
casioned by  Mr.  Coddington's  measures  would  have  been 
ruinous.  The  only  remedy  was  an  immediate  application 
to  the  government  in  England,  for  the  repeal  of  Mr.  Cod- 
dington's charter,  and  the  confirmation  of  that  obtained  by 
Mr.  Williams.  For  this  purpose,  Mr.  John  Clarke  was  re- 
quested by  citizens  of  Newport  and  Portsmouth*  to  pro- 
ceed to  England,  as  their  agent.  The  towns  of  Provi- 
dence and  Warwick  urgently  importuned  Mr.  Williams  to 
accompany  Mr.  Clarke  on  this  important  business.  He 
consented,  though  with  reluctance,  arising  from  a  natural 
unwillingness  to  leave  his  large  family,  (now  consisting  of 
a  wife  and  six  children)  and  partly,  we  presume,  from  ina- 
bility to  sustain  the  expense.  He  had  not  been  remuner- 
ated for  his  former  agency,  and  he  was  now,  it  seems, 
obliged,  in  order  to  raise  funds,  to  sell  his  house  at  Nar- 
raganset,t  notwithstanding  that  some  eiforts  were  made  by 
the  people  of  Providence  and  Warwick  to  obtain  a  sufii- 
cient  sum  by  subscription.  These  facts  we  learn  from  the 
following  letter  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  and  from  a  letter  which 
will  next  be  quoted  from  William  Arnold  : 

"  For  my  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at 
Pequod. 

''Nar.  6,  8,  51,  {so  called.) 
"Sir, 
"  Once  more   my   loving  and  dear  respects  presented  to 

*  The  application  was  signed  by  sixty-five  inhabitants  of  Newport, 
who  are  said  t.o  have  been,  at  that  tune,  ahnost  all  the  free  male  in- 
habitants. Forty-one  of  the  inhabitants  of  Portsmouth  signed  a  like 
request.  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  274.  These  facts  imply,  that  Mr.  Cod- 
dington's party  was  not  very  large,  and  that  his  conduct  was  un- 
justifiable. 

t  In  a  letter,  written  in  1677,  he  says,  that  "  he  gave  up  his  trading 
house  at  Narraganset,  when  he  last  went  to  England,  with  one  hun- 
dred pounds  profit  per  annum." 


248  MEMOIR     OF 

you  both,  and  Mrs.  Lake.  Being  now  bound,  resolvedly, 
(if  the  Lord  please)  for  our  native  country,  I  am  not  cer- 
tain whether  by  the  way  of  the  English,  (you  know  the 
reason*)  or  by  the  way  of  the  Dutch.  My  neighbors  of 
Providence  and  Warwick,  (whom  I  also  lately  denied) 
with  importunities,  have  overcome  me  to  endeavor  the  re- 
newing of  their  liberties,  upon  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Cod- 
dington's  late  grant.  Upon  this  occasion,  I  have  been  ad- 
vised to  sell,  and  have  sold  this  house  to  Mr.  Smith,  my 
neighbor,  who  also  may  possibly  be  yours,  for  I  hear  he  is 
like  to  have  Mrs.  Chester. 

"  Sir,  I  humbly  thank  you  for  all  your  loving-kindnesses 
to  me  and  mine  unworthy.  The  Father  of  Mercies  gra- 
ciously reward  you,  guide  you,  preserve  you,  save,  sanctify 
and  glorify  you  in  the  blood  of  his  dear  Son,  in  whom  I 
mourn  I  am  no  more,  and  desire  to  be  yours,  unfeignedly 
and  eternally, 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

'■'■  This  bearer,  coming  now  from  England,  will  acquaint 
you,  &/C. 

"  To  all  yours,  and  all  my  friends,  my  loving  salutations. 
Mr.  Sands,  of  Boston,  and  John  Hazel,  of  Seekonk,  are 
gone  before  us." 

Information  of  these  designs  was  immediately  communi- 
cated by  William  Arnold  to  the  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts. The  following  letter,  preserved  in  Hutchinson's 
Collection,  is  worthy  of  perusal,  both  from  its  connection 
with  Mr.  Williams,  and  from  the  light  which  it  throws  on 
the  state  of  the  times.  Mr.  Arnold,  it  will  be  seen,  was 
not  disposed  to  look  on  any  of  the  proceedings  of  Rhode- 
Island  with  a  favorable  eye ;  and  hence  he  accuses  its  in- 
habitants of  hostility  to  the  united  colonies,  though  facts 
do  not  seem  to  sustain  the  charge,  unless  hostility  was  in- 
dicated by  a  patient  endurance  of  wrong,  and  by  generous 
services  in  time  of  danger. 


*  This  reason  was,  his  banishment  from  Massachusetts.  There  was 
much  dehcacy  in  thus  shghtly  referring  to  a  measure,  in  which  Mr. 
Winthrop's  father  was,  from  his  official  relations,  concerned. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  249 

Copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  William  Arnold  to  the  Gov- 
errror  of  Massachusetts : 

"  From  Pawiuxet,  this  1st  day  of  tlie  1th  month,  165 1 . 
"  Much  honored, 

"  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  give  intelligence  unto  the  much 
honored  Court,  of  that  which  I  understand  is  now  working 
here  in  these  parts ;  so  that  if  it  be  iiie  will  of  God,  an  evil 
may  be  prevented,  before  it  come  to  too  great  a  head,  viz  : 

"  Whereas  Mr.  Coddington  has  gotten  a  charter  of 
Rhode-Island  and  Canonicut  Island  to  himself,  he  has 
thereby  broken  the  force  of  their  charter,  that  went  under 
the  name  of  Providence,  because  he  has  gotten  away  the 
greater  part  of  that  colony. 

"  Now  these  company  of  the  Gortonists,  that  live  at 
Shawomet,  and  that  company  of  Providence^  are  gathering 
of  c£200,  to  send  Mr.  Roger  Williams  unto  the  Parliament, 
to  get  them  a  charter  of  these  parts,  they  of  Shawomet 
have  given  =£100  already,  and  there  be  some  men  of  Prov- 
idence that  have  given  =£10  and  =£20  a  man,  to  help  it  for- 
ward with  speed ;  they  say  here  is  a  fair  inlet,  and  I  hear 
they  have  said,  that  if  the  Parliament  do  take  displeasure 
against  Massachusetts,  or  the  rest  of  the  colonies,  as  they 
have  done  against  Barbadoes  and  other  places,  then  this 
will  serve  for  an  inroad  to  let  in  forces  to-  overrun  the 
whole  country, 

"It  is  great  pity,  and  very  unfit,  that  such  a  company  as 
these  are,  they  all  stand  professed  enemies  against  all  the 
united  colonies,  that  they  should  get  a  charter  for  so  small 
a  quantity  of  land  as  lieth  in  and  about  Providence,  Shawo- 
met, Pawtuxet,  and  Cmveset,  all  which,  now  Rhode-Island 
is  taken  out  from  it,  is  but  a  strip  of  land  lying  in  be- 
tween the  colonies  of  Massachusetts,  Plymouth  and  Con- 
necticut, by  which  means,  if  they  should  get  them  a  char- 
ter, of  it  there  may  come  some  mischief  and  trouble  upon 
the  whole  country,  if  their  project  be  not  prevented  in 
time,  for  under  the  pretence  of  liberty  of  conscience,  about 
these  parts,  there  comes  to  live  all  the  scum,  the  runaways 
of  the  country,  which,  in  time,  for  want  of  better  order,  may 
bring  a  heavy  burthen  upon  the  land,  &c.  This  I  humbly 
commend  unto  the  serious  consideration  of  the  much  hon- 
ored Court,  and  rest  your  humble  servant  to  command, 

''WILLIAM  ARNOLD. 
22 


i250  ME  MO  I  p.     OP 

"  They  are  making  haste  to  send  Mr.  Williams  away. 
We  that  live  here  near  them,  and  do  know  the  place 
and  hear  their  words,  and  do  take  notice  of  their  proceed- 
ing, do  know  more  and  can  speak  more  of  what  may  come 
to  the  country  by  their  means,  than  the  Court  do  yet  con- 
sider of  We  humbly  desire  God  their  purpose  may  be 
frustrated,  for  the  country's  peace. 

'-  I  humbly  desire  my  name  may  be  concealed,  lest 
they,  hearing  of  what  I  have  herein  written,  they  will 
be  enraged  against  me,  and  so  will  revenge  themselves 
upon  me. 

"  Some  of  them  of  Shawomet  that  crieth  out  much 
against  them  which  putteth  people  to  death  for  witches  ; 
for,  say  they,  there  be  no  other  witches  upon  earth,  nor 
devils,  but  your  own  pastors  and  ministers,  and  such  as 
they  are,  &c. 

*'  I  understand  that  there  liveth  a  man  amongst  them 
that  broke  prison,  either  at  Connecticut  or  New-Haven  ; 
he  was  apprehended  for  adultery;  the  woman,  I  hear,  was 
put  to  death,  but  the  man  is  kept  here  in  safety,  in  the 
midst  of  the  united  colonies.  It  is  time  there  were  som.e 
better  order  taken  for  these  parts,  &c. 

'*  I  have  hired  this  messenger  on  purpose.  I  humbly 
desire  to  hear  if  this  letter  come  safe  to  your  hands." 

The  town  of  Warwick  addressed  to  the  commissioners, 
who  met  at  New-Haven,  September  4,  1651,  a  letter^*  in 
which  they  unfolded  the  real  condition  of  the  town,  and  an- 
nounced, with  calm  dignity,  their  design  to  appeal  to  the 
ffovernment  of  Enorland.  Mr.  Arnold  had  written,  in 
haste,  as  if  some  secret  plot  had  been  fomented ;  but  the 
town  thus  gave  seasonable  notice  to  the  commissioners,  in 
order  that  the  other  colonies  might  adopt  measures,  if  they 
pleased,  to  oppose  and  defeat  this  new  embassy  to  England. 
The  inhabitants  of  Warwick  felt  a  confidence  in  the  justice 
of  their  claims,  and  feared  no  opposition. 

This  letter  occasioned  much  debate  among  the  commis- 
sioners. Those  of  Massachusetts  alleged,  that  Plymouth 
had  resigned  to  Massachusetts  all    its  pretensions  to  War- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  272. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  '251 

wick,  while  the  commissioners  of  Plymouth  denied  that 
such  a  relinquishment  had  been  made,  and  protested 
against  the  proceedings  of  Massachusetts,  in  relation  to 
Warwick.  This  disagreement  among  themselves  may  be 
received  as  one  of  the  proofs,  that  neither  party  had  any 
just  claims. 


252  MEMOIR     OF 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  sail — Mr.  Coddington's  charter  va- 
cated— troubles  in  Rhode-Island — Mr.  Williams  returns — Sir  Hen- 
ry Vane — Milton — Mr.  Williams  endeavors  to  re-establish  order — 
Indians — letter  on  religious  and  civil  liberty. 

Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  sailed  from  Boston  for 
England,  in  November,  1651.  It  was  not  without  con- 
siderable difficulty  that  Mr.  Williams  was  allowed  to  take 
passage  at  Boston.  The  object  of  his  mission  was  offensive 
to  Massachusetts,  besides  the  old  dislike  of  his  principles. 

During  their  absence,  the  towns  of  Newport  and  Ports- 
mouth submitted  quietly  to  Mr.  Coddington's  rule.  Provi- 
dence and  Warwick  resolved  to  maintain  the  government, 
as  before  established.  They  accordingly  met  by  their 
deputies,  in  General  Assembly,  at  Providence,  elected  a 
Governor,  and  enacted  several  laws,  one  of  which  prohib- 
ited any  person  from  purchasing  land  of  the  Indians,  with- 
out the  approbation  of  the  Assembly,  on  penalty  of  forfeit- 
ing the  same  to  the  colony. 

Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke,  on  their  arrival  in  Eng- 
land, presented  a  petition  to  the  Council  of  State,  who,  on 
April  8,  1652,  referred  it  to  the  committee  for  foreign 
affairs.  The  application  met  with  opposition,  from  various 
sources ;  but  the  Council  of  State  granted  an  order  to 
vacate  Mr.  Coddington's  commission,  and  to  confirm  the 
former  charter. 

While  in  England,  in  1652,  Mr.  Clarke  published  a 
book,  entitled  "  111  News  from  New-England,  or  a  Narrative 
of  New-England's  Persecutions  ;  wherein  it  is  declared,  that 
while  Old  England  is  becoming  New,  New-England  is 
becoming  Old  ;  also,  Four  Proposals  to  Parliament,  and 
Four  Conclusions,  touching  the  Faith  and  Order  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  out  of  his  Last  Will  and  Testament." 

Mr.  Williams  also  published,  in  1652,  his  rejoinder  to 
Mr.  Cotton,  entitled  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  yet  More  Bloody, 
by  Mr.  Cotton's  Endeavor  to  Wash  it  White ;"  and  two 
essaysj  the  one  entitled   "  The  Hireling  Ministry  None  of 


feOGER      WILLIAMS.  26S 

Christ's,  or  a  Discourse  on  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ ;"  and  the  other,  "  Experiments  of  Spiritual 
Life  and  Health,  and  their  Preservatives." 

The  following  letter  was  written  to  Mr.  Gregory  Dexter, 
who  had  printed  Mr.  Williams'  "  Key,"  during  his  first 
visit  to  England,  but  w^ho  had  subsequently  removed  to 
Providence  . 

"  At  Mr.  Davis  his  house,  at  the  Checker,  in  St.  Martin's, 
or  at  Sir  Henry  Vane's,  at  Whitehall. 

"8tk,  7,  5^,  {so  called.) 
*'  My  dear  and  faithful  friend,  to  whom,  with  the  dearest, 
I  humbly  wish  more  and  more  of  the  light  and  love  of  him 
who  is  invisible,  God  blessed  for  evermore  in  the  face  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  hath  pleased  God  so  to  engage  me  in 
divers  skirmishes  against  the  priests,  both  of  Old  and  New- 
England,  so  that  I  have  occasioned  using  the  help  of 
printer  men,  unknown  to  me,  to  long  for  my  old  friend. 
So  it  hath  pleased  God  to  hold  open  an  open  desire  of 
preaching  and  printing  wonderfully  against  Romish  and 
English  will-worship.  At  this  present,  the  devil  rageth  and 
clamors  in  petitions  and  remonstrances  from  the  stationers 
and  others  to  the  Parliament,  and  all  cry,  '  shut  up  the 
press.'  The  stationers  and  others  have  put  forth  '  The 
Beacon  Fired,'  and  '  The  Second  Beacon  Fired  ;'  and  some 
friends  of  yours  have  put  forth  '  The  Beacon  Quenched,^ 
not  yet  extant. 

"  Sir,  many  friends  have  frequently,  v/ith  much  love, 
inquired  after  you.  Mr.  Warner  is  not  yet  com.e  with  my 
letters :  they  put  into  Barnstable.  She  came  by  wagon  by 
land,  but  he  goes  with  the  ship  to  Bristol,  aiKl,.  indeed,  ir^ 
this  dangerous  war  with  the  Dutch,  the  only  safe  trading  is 
to  Bristol,  or  those  parts,  for  up  along  the  channel,  in  Lon- 
don way,  is  the  greatest  danger,  for  although  our  fleets  be 
abroad,  and  take  many  French  and  Dutch,  yet  they  some- 
times catch  up  som.e  of  ours. 

"  By  my  public  letters,  you  will  see  how  we  wrestle,  and 
how  we  are  like  yet  to  wq-estle,  in  the  hopes  of  an  end. 
Praised  be  the  Lord,  we  are  preserved,  the  nation  is  pre- 
served, the  Parliament  sits,  God's  people  are  secure,  too 
secure.  A  great  opinion  is,  that  the  kingdom  of  Christ  is 
risen,  and  (Rev.  11:)  'the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  be- 
22*   . 


254  MEMOIR     DP 

come  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ.'  Others 
have  fear  of  the  slaughter  of  the  witnesses  yet  approaching. 
Divers  friends,  of  all  sorts,  here,  long  to  see  you,  and  won- 
der you  come  not  over.  For  myself,  I  had  hopes  to  have 
got  away  by  this  ship,  but  I  see  now  the  mind  of  the  Lord 
to  hold  me  here  one  year  longer.  It  is  God's  mercy,  his 
very  great  mercy,  that  v/e  have  obtained  this  interim  en- 
couragement from  the  Council  of  State,  that  you  may 
cheerfully  go  on  in  the  name  of  a  colony,  until  the  contro- 
versy is  determined.  The  determination  of  it,  Sir,  I  fear, 
will  be  a  work  of  time,  I  fear  longer  than  we  have  yet  been 
here,  for  our  adversaries  threaten  to  make  a  last  appeal  to 
the  Parliament,  in  case  we  get  the  day  before  the  Council. 

"  Sir,  in  this  regard,  and  when  my  public  business  is 
over,  I  am  resolved  to  begin  my  old  law-suit,  so  that  I  have 
no  thought  of  return  until  spring  come  twelve  months. 
My  duty  and  affection  hath  compelled  me  to  acquaint  my 
poor  companion  with  it.  I  consider  our  many  children, 
the  danger  of  the  seas,  and  enemies,  and  therelbre  I  write 
not  positively  for  her,  only  I  acquaint  her  with  our  affairs. 
I  tell  her,  joyful  I  should  be  of  her  being  here  with  me, 
until  our  state  affairs  were  ended,  and  I  freely  leave  her  to 
wait  upon  the  Lord  for  direction,  and  according  as  she 
finds  her  spirit  free  and  cheerful,  to  come  or  stay.  If  it 
please  the  Lord  to  give  her  a  free  spirit  to  cast  herself  upon 
the  Lord,  I  doubt  not  of  your  love  and  faithful  care,  in  any 
thing  she  hath  occasion  to  use  your  help,  concerning  our 
children  and  affairs,  during  our  absence  ;  but  I  conclude, 
whom  have  I  in  heaven  or  earth  but  thee,  and  so  humbly 
and  thankfully  say,  in  the  Lord's  pleasure,  as  only  and  in- 
finitely best  and  sweetest. 

"  Abundance  of  love  remembered  from  abundance  of 
friends  to  your  dear  self  and  your  dearest. 

"  My  love  to  your  cousin  Clemence,  and  all  desire  love, 
especially  our  godly  friends. 

"  To  my  dear  and  faithful  friend,  Mr.  Gregory  Dexter, 
at  Providence,  in  New-England,  these." 

The  General  Assembly,  which  met  at  Providence,  in 
October,  addressed  the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Williams. 
It  is  valuable,  as  a  public  testimonial  of  the  affection  of  his 
fellow-citizens.     The   proposition   to  procure  for   himself, 


n  o  G  ::  R    Williams.  *^55 

from  the  government  of  England,  an  appointment  as  Gov- 
ernor of  the  colony  for  one  year,  is  a  strong  proof  of  their 
respect  and  confidence,  though  this  proposition  was  pro- 
tested against  by  some  of  them.  Mr.  Williams,  we  pre- 
sume, did  not  covet  this  distinction,  and  probably  consid- 
ered such  an  appointment  as  a  dangerous  precedent,  and  a 
virtual  relinquishment  of  the  authority  given  to  the  colony 
by  the  charter  to  elect  its  own  officers. 

"  Honored  Sir, 

''  We  may  not  neglect  any  opportunity  to  salute  you  in 
this  your  absence,  and  have  not  a  little  cause  to  bless 
God,  who  hath  pleased  to  select  you  to  such  a  purpose,  as 
we  doubt  not  but  will  conduce  to  the  peace  and  safety  of 
us  all,  as  t^  make  you  once  more  an  instrument  to  impart 
and  disclose  our  cause  unto  those  noble  and  grave  senators, 
our  honorable  protectors,  in  whose  eyes  God  hath  given 
you  honor,  (as  we  understand)  beyond  our  hopes,  and 
moved  the  hearts  of  the  wise  to  stir  on  your  behalf.  We  give 
you  hearty  thanks  for  your  care  and  diligence,  to  watch  all 
opportunities  to  promote  our  peace,  for  v.e  perceive  your 
prudent  and  comprehensive  mind  stirreth  every  stone  to 
present  it  to  the  builders,  to  make  firm  the  fabric  unto  us, 
about  which  you  are  employed,  laboring  to  unweave  such 
irregular  devices  wrought  by  others  amongst  us,  as  have 
formerly  clothed  us  with  so  sad  events,  as  the  subjection  of 
some  among  us,  both  English  and  Indian,  to  other  jurisdic- 
tions, as  also  to  prevent  such  near  approach  of  our  neigh- 
bors upon  our  borders,  on  the  Narraganset  side,  which 
might  much  annoy  us,  with  your  endeavors  to  furnish  us 
with  such  ammunition  as  to  look  a  foreign  enemy  in  the 
face,  being  that  the  cruel  begin  to  stir  in  these  western 
parts,  and  to  unite  in  one  again  such  as  of  late  have  had 
seeming  separation  in  some  respects,  to  encourage  and 
strengthen  our  weak  and  enfeebled  body  to  perform  its 
work  in  these  foreign  parts,  to  the  honor  of  such  as  take 
care,  have  been  and  are  so  tender  of  our  good,  though  we 
be  unworthy  to  be  had  in  remembrance  by  persons  of  po 
noble  places,  indued  with  parts  of  so  excellent  and  honora- 
ble and  abundantly  beneficial  use. 

"  Sir,  give  us  leave  to  intimate  thus  much,  that  we  hum- 
bly conceive  (so  far  as  we  are  able   to  understand)  that  if 


^^6  ivi  E  M  O  I  R     O  P 

it  be  the  pleasure  of  our  protectors  to  renew  our  charter  for 
the  re-establishing  of  our  government,  that  it  might  tend 
much  to  the  weighing  of  men's  minds,  and  subjecting  of 
persons  who  have  been  refractory,  to  yield  themselves  over 
as  unto  a  settled  government,  if  it  might  be  the  pleasure  of 
that  honorable  state,  to  invest,  appoint,  and  empower  your- 
self to  come  over  as  Governor  of  this  colony,  for  the  space 
of  one  year,  and  so  the  government  to^  be  honorably  put 
upon  this  place,  which  might  seem  to  add  ueight  forever 
hereafter  in  the  constant  and  successive  derivation  of  the 
same.  We  only  present  it  to  your  deliberate  thoughts  and 
consideration,  with  our  hearty  desires  that  your  tinie  of 
stay  there  for  the  effectual  perfecting  and  finishing  of  your 
so  weighty  affairs  may  not  seem  tedious,  nor  be  any  dis- 
couragement unto  you ;  rather  than  you  shall  suffer  for 
loss  of  time  here,  or  expense  there,  we  arc  resolved  to 
stretch  forth  our  hands  at  your  return,  beyond  our  strength, 
for  vour  supply.  Your  loving  bed-fellow  is  in  health,  and 
presents  her  endeared  affection,  so  are  all  your  family. 
Mr.  Sayles,  also,  and  his,  with  the  rest  of  your  friends 
throughout  the  colony,  who  wish  and  desire  earnestly  to 
see  your  face. 

"  Sir,  we  are  yours;  leaving  you  unto  the  Lord,  we 
heartily  take  leave. 

"  From  the  General  Assembly  of  this  colony  of  Provi- 
dence Plantations,  assembled  in  the  town  of  Providence, 
the  ^Sth  of  October,  1652. 

■''JOHN  GREENE,   General  Recorder J"^ 

The  order  of  the  Council  of  State  vvas  sent  over  by  Mr. 
Vv^illiarn  Dyre,  who,  perhaps,  accompanied  the  agents  to 
England.  This  order  directed  the  tov»'ns  to  unite  again, 
as  before  ;  but  it  was  found,  in  this,  as  in  other  cas^s,  easier 
to  command,  than  to  enforce  obedience.     The  towns  seem 

*  Providence  Records.  This  letter  \va3  written,  apnaicntly,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  following-  act,  passed  on  the  3d  of  June  preceding: 
''  Whereas  we  have  received  divers  loving  letters  from  -our  agent, 
Mr.  P;.oger  Williams,  in  England,  wherein  the  careful  proceedings 
are  manifested  unto  us  concerning  our  public  aiiairs,  and  yet  no 
answering  letters  of  encouragement  have  been  seiit  unto  him  from 
this  colony  ;  therefore  the  town  doth  take  it  into  consideration,  and 
orders  to  make  arrangements  for  a  ccmmitiee  of  tiio  two  towns  of 
Warv.-ick  and  Providence  to  v/rite  to  him." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  257 

to  have  been  jealous  of  each  other,  and  tenacious  of  their 
claims  to  precedence.  It  was  found  difficult  to  procure  a 
meeting,  to  adjust  the  government ;  the  two  towns  on  the 
island  insisting  that  the  meeting  should  be  held  there,  as 
the  largest  part  of  the  colony,  while  the  towns  of  Providence 
and  Warwick  made  a  similar  claim,  with  the  plausible 
reason,  that  they  had  steadily  adhered  to  the  charter. 

The  result  was,  either  from  mistake  or  from  a  rigid  ad- 
herence to  etiquette,  that  two  meetings  were  held.  Mr. 
Backus  says  :* 

"  The  towns  on  the  main  met  at  Providence,  May  17, 
1653,  and  elected  their  officers.  An  assembly  met  at  the 
same  time  on  the  island,  and  chose  Mr.  Sanford  their  Pres- 
ident, and  some  freemen  coming  from  the  main,  they  chose 
an  assistant  for  each  town  in  the  colony ;  and  they  sent 
Mr.  James  Barker  and  Mr.  Richard  Knight  to  Mr.  Cod- 
dington,  to  demand  the  statute  book  and  book  of  records. 
And  as  it  was  then  a  time  of  war  betwixt  England  and 
Holland,  and  a  mention  was  made  of  it  in  the  letters  which 
confirmed  their  charter,  Dyre  thought  to  make  his  advan- 
tage thereby,  and  procured  commissions  for  himself,  Capt. 
Underbill  and  Edward  Hull,  to  act  against  the  Dutch  in 
America ;  and  some  cannon,  with  twenty  men,  were  sent 
to  the  English,  on  the  east  end  of  Long-Island,  to  enable 
them  to  act  against  the  Dutch,  who  lay  to  the  westward  of 
them.  This  alarmed  Providence  colony,  who  met  again  in 
June,  and  a  third  time  at  Warwick,  on  August  13,  when 
they  answered  a  letter  from  the  Massachusetts,  and  remon- 
strated against  being  drawn  into  a  war  with  the  Dutch ; 
and  wrote  to  Mr.  Williams  an  account  of  Dyre's  conduct, 
and  of  their  being  urged  to  give  up  their  former  actings  as 
null ;  but,  say  they,  '  being  still  in  the  same  order  you  left 
us,  and  observing  two  great  evils  that  such  a  course  would 
bring  upon  us  :  First,  the  hazard  of  involving  in  all  the 
disorders  and  bloodshed  which  have  been  committed  on 
Rhode-Island  since  their  separation  from  us.'  Secondly, 
'  the  invading  and  frustrating  of  justice  in  divers  weighty 
causes,  then  orderly  depending  in  our  courts,  in  some  of 
which  causes,  Mr.  Smith,  President,   William  Field,  &c. 

«  Vol.  i.  p.  279. 


258  MEMOIR     OP 

were  deeply  concerned ;'  therefore   they  could  not  yield  to 
such  a  motion.' '"' 

Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Clarke  continued  in  England,  en- 
deavoring to  sustain  the  rights  of  the  colony.  They  had 
many  opposers,  but  they  found  a  steady  and  powerful  friend 
in  Sir  Henry  Vane.*  At  his  seat  Mr.  Williams  spent  a 
portion  of  his  time.  While  there,  he  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  the  towns  of  Providence  and  Warwick.  It  ex- 
hibits his  generous  self-devotion  for  the  public  good,  his 
love  for  his  family,  and  his  characteristic  regard  for  the 
Indians  : 

-"  From  Sir  Henry  Vane's,  at  Belleau,  in  Lincolnshire. 

"  Ajjril  1st,  53,  (so  called.) 
"  My  dear  and  loving  friends  and  neighbors  of  Provi- 
dence and  Warwick,  our  noble  friend.  Sir  Henry  Vane, 
having  the  navy  of  England  mostly  depending  on  his  care, 
and  going  down  to  the  navy  at  Portsmouth,  I  was  invited 
by  them  both  to  accompany  his  lady  to  Lincolnshire,  where 
I  shall  yet  stay,  as  I  fear,  until  the  ship  is  gone.  I  must 
therefore  pray  your  pardon,  that  by  the  post  I  send  this  to 
London.  I  hope  it  may  have  pleased  the  Most  High  Lord 
of  sea  and  land  to  bring  Capt.  Ch-rst-n's  ship  and  dear 
Mr.  Dyre  unto  you,  and  with  him  the  Council's  letters, 
which  answer  the  petition  Sir  Henry  Vane  and  myself 
drew  up,  and  the  Council,  by  Sir  Henry's  mediation,  grant- 
ed us,  for  the  confirmation  of  the  charter,  until  the  deter- 
mination of  the  controversy.  This  determination,  you  may 
please  to  understand,  is  hindered  by  two  main  obstructions. 
The  first  is  the  mighty  war  with  the  Dutch,  which  makes 
England  and  Holland  and  the  nations  tremble.  This  hath 
made  the  Parliament  set  Sir  Henry  Vane  and  two  or  three 
more   as  commissioners  to  manage  the   war,  which  they 

'"  Sir  Henry  Vane  was  born  in  England.  He  was  a  non-conform- 
ist, and  he  came  to  New-England  in  1635.  The  next  year  he  was 
elected  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  tliougli  he  was  only  twenty-four 
years  of  age.  He  became  a  follower  of  Mrs.  Hvitchinson.  and  was  soon 
superseded  by  Governor  Winthrop.  He  returned  to  England, 
where  he  took  a  decided  part  against  the  King,  and  opposed  Crom- 
well. After  the  restcration,  he  was  executed  for  high  treason,  June 
14.  16'o'2.  aged  fifty  years.  He  died  with  great  firmness  and  dignity. 
He  appears  to  have  been  an  able  man,  sincerely  pious,  and  a  true 
friend  of  libertv 


«<  O  (i  E  R      \V  1  I,  L  I  A  M  S.  259" 

have  done,  with  much  engaging  the  name  of  God  with 
them,  who  hath  appeared  in  helping  sixty  of  ours  against 
almost  three  hundred  of  their  men-of-war,  and  perchance 
to  the  sinking  and  taking  about  one  hundred  of  theirs,  and 
but  one  of  ours,  which  was  sunk  by  our  own  men.  Our 
second  obstruction  is  the  opposition  of  our  adversaries,  Sir 
Arthur  Haselrig  and  Col.  Fenwicke,  who  hath  married  his 
daughter,  Mr.  Winslow,  and  Mr.  Hopkins,  both  in  great 
place  ;  and  all  the  friends  they  can  make  in  Parliament 
and  Council,  and  all  the  priests,  both  Presbyterian  and  In- 
dependent ;  so  that  we  stand  as  two  armies,  ready  to  en- 
gage, observing  the  motions  and  postures  each  of  the  other, 
and  yet  shy  each  of  other.  Under  God,  the  sheet-anchor 
of  our  ship  is  Sir  Henry,  who  will  do  as  the  eye  of  God 
leads  him,  and  he  faithfully  promised  me  that  he  would  ob- 
serve the  motion  of  our  New-England  business,  while  I 
staid  some  ten  weeks  with  his  lady  in  Lincolnshire.  Be- 
sides, here  is  great  thoughts  and  preparation  for  a  new- 
Parliament  ;  some  of  our  friends  are  apt  to  think  another 
Parliament  will  more  favor  us  and  our  cause  than  this  has 
done.  You  may  please  to  put  my  condition  into  your  soul's 
cases;  remember  I  am  a  father  and  a  husband.  I  have 
longed  earnestly  to  return  with  the  last  ship,  and  with 
these,  yet  I  have  not  been  willing  to  withdraw  my  shoulders 
from  the  burthen,  lest  it  pinch  others,  and  may  fall  heavy 
upon  all ;  except  you  are  pleased  to  give  to  me  a  discharge. 
If  you  conceive  it  necessary  for  me  still  fo  attend  this  ser- 
vice, pray  you  consider  if  it  be  not  convenient  that  my.  poor 
wife  be  encouraged  to  come  over  to  me,  and  to  wait  to- 
gether on  the  good  pleasure  of  God  for  the  end  of  this  mat- 
ter. You  know  my  many  weights  hanging  on  me,  how  my 
own  place  stands,  and  how  many  reasons  I  have  to  cause 
me  to  make  haste,  yet  I  would  not  lose  their  estates,  peace 
and  liberty,  by  leaving  hastily.  I  write  to  my  dear  wife, 
my  great  desire  of  her  coming  while  I  stay,  yet  left  it  to  the 
freedom  of  her  spirit,  because  of  the  many  dangers ;  truly, 
at  present  the  seas  are  dangerous,  but  not  comparably  so 
much,  nor  likely  to  be,  because  of  the  late  great  defeat  of 
the  Dutch,  and  their  present  sending  to  us  offers  of  peace. 
"  My  dear  friends,  although  it  pleased  God  himself,  by 
many  favors,  to  encourage  me,  yet  please  you  to  remember, 
that  no  man  can  stay  here  as  I  do,  leaving  a  present  em- 


260  MEMOIR     OP 

ployment  there,  without  much  self-denial,  which  I  beseech 
God  for  more,  and  for  you  also,  that  no  private  respects,  or 
gains,  or  quarrels,  may  cause  you  to  neglect  the  public  and 
common  safety,  peace  and  liberties.  I  beseech  the  blessed 
God  to  keep  fresh  in  your  thoughts  what  he  hath  done  for 
Providence  Plantations. 

"  My  dear  respects  to  yourselves,  wives  and  children.  I 
beseech  the  eternal  God  to  be  seen  amongst  you  ;  so  prays 
your  most  faithful  and  affectionate  friend  and  servant, 

"ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  P.  S.     My  love  to  all  my  Indian  friends."* 

The  difficulties  in  the  colony  continued,  and  were  art- 
fully fomented  by  uneasy  men,  who  thought  disorder  more 
propitious  to  their  interests  than  the  stable  dominion  of  law 
and  good  government.  Mr.  Williams  felt  that  his  pres- 
ence was  needed  at  home,  that  he  might,  if  possible,  bring 
the  discordant  towns  into  harmonious  co-operation.  He 
therefore  left  Mr.  Clarke  in  England,  to  prosecute  the  duties 
of  their  mission,  and  returned,  early  in  the  summer  of 
1654.  He  landed  at  Boston,  and  being  furnished  with 
an  order  from  the  Lord  Protector's  Council,  requiring  the 
government  of  Massachusetts  to  allow  him  in  future  to  em- 
bark or  land  in  their  territories,  he  was  not  molested.  He 
brought  the  following  letter  from  Sir  Henry  Vane,  ad- 
dressed to  the  inhabitants  of  the  colony  of  Rhode-Island  : 

''  Loving  and  Christian  friends, 
*'  I  could  not  refuse  this  bearer,  Mr.  Roger  Williams, 
my  kind  friend  and  ancient  acquaintance,  to  be  accompa- 
nied with  these  few  lines  from  myself  to  you,  upon  his  re- 
turn to  Providence  colony  ;  though,  perhaps,  my  private 
and  retired  condition,  which  the  Lord,  of  his  mercy,  hath 
brought  me  into,  might  have  argued  strongly  enough  for 
my  silence  ;  but,  indeed,  something  I  hold  myself  bound 
to  say  to  you,  out  of  the  Christian  love  I  bear  you,  and  for 
his  sake  whose  name  is  called  upon  by  you  and  engaged 
in  your  behalf.  How  is  it  that  there  are  such  divisions 
amongst  you?  Such  headiness,  tumults,  disorders,  in- 
justice ?  The  noise  echoes  into  the  ears  of  all,  as  well 
friends  as  enemies,  by  every  return  of  ships  from  those 
parts.     Is  not  the  fear  and  awe  of  God  amongst  you  to  re- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  pp.  285-8. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  261 

Strain?  Is  not  the  love  of  Christ  in  you,  to  fill  you  with 
yearning  bowels,  one  towards  another,  and  constrain  you 
not  to  live  to  yourselves,  but  to  him  that  died  for  you,  yea, 
and  is  risen  again  ?  Are  there  no  wise  men  amongst  you  1 
No  public  self-denying  spirits,  that  at  least,  upon  the 
grounds  of  public  safety,  equity  and  prudence,  can  find  out 
some  way  or  means  of  union  and  reconciliation  for  you 
amongst  yourselves,  before  you  become  a  prey  to  common 
enemies,  especially  since  this  state,  by  the  last  letter  from 
the  Council  of  State,  give  you  your  freedom,  as  supposing 
a  better  use  would  have  been  made  of  it  than  there  hath 
been  ?  Surely,  when  kind  and  simple  remedies  are  ap- 
plied and  are  ineffectual,  it  speaks  loud  and  broadly  the 
high  and  dangerous  distempers  of  such  a  body,  as  if  the 
wounds  were  incurable.  But  I  hope  better  things  from 
you,  though  I  thus  speak,  and  should  be  apt  to  think,  that 
by  commissioners  agreed  on  and  appointed  on  all  parts, 
and  on  behalf  of  all  interests,  in  a  general  meeting,  such  a 
union  and  common  satisfaction  might  arise,  as,  through 
God's  blessing,  might  put  a  stop  to  your  growing  breaches 
and  distractions,  silence  your  enemies,  encourage  your 
friends,  honor  the  name  of  God,  (which  of  late  hath  been 
much  blasphemed,  by  reason  of  you,)  and  in  particular,  re- 
fresh and  revive  the  sad  heart  of  him  who  mourns  over 
your  present  evils,  as  being  your  affectionate  friend,  to 
serve  you  in  the  Lord. 

''H.  VANE. 
"  Belleau,  the  Sth  of  February,  1653-4."* 

Soon  after  Mr.  Williams  returned,  he  wrote  the   follow- 
ing letter   to  his   friend,  Mr.  Winthrop  : 

"  For  my  much  honored,   kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Win- 
throp, at  Pequod. 

^^  Providence,  July  12,  54,  (so  called.) 
''  Sir, 
*'  I  was  humbly  bold  to  salute  you  from  our  native  coun- 
try, and  now,  by  the  gracious  hand  of  the  Lord,  once  more 
saluting  this  wilderness,  I  crave  your  wonted  patience  to 
my  wonted  boldness,  who  ever  honored  and  loved,  and  ever 
shall,  the  root  and  branches  of  your  dear  name.     How  joy- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  288. 

23 


26^2  MEMOIR     OF 

ful,  therefore,  was  I  to  hear  of  your  abode  as  a  stake  and 
pillar  in  these  parts,  and  of  your  healths,  your  own,  Mrs. 
Winthrop,  and  your  branches,  although  some  sad  mixtures 
we  have  had  from  the  sad  tidings  (if  true)  of  the  late  loss 
and  cutting  off  of  one  of  them. 

"  Sir,  I  was  lately  upon  the  wing  to  have  waited  on  you 
at  your  house.  I  had  disposed  all  for  my  journey,  and  my 
staff  was  in  my  hand,  but  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  interpose 
some  impediments,  so  that  I  am  compelled  to  a  suspension 
for  a  season,  and  choose  at  present  thus  to  visit  you.  I 
had  no  letters  for  you,  but  yours  were  well.  I  was  at  the 
lodgings  of  Major  Winthrop  and  Mr.  Peters,  but  I  missed 
them.  Your  brother  flourisheth  in  good  esteem,  and  is 
eminent  for  maintaining  the  freedom  of  the  conscience  as 
to  matters  of  belief,  religion  and  worship.  Your  father 
Peters*  preacheth  the  same  doctrine,  though  not  so  zeal- 
ously as  some  years  since,  yet  cries  out  against  New-English 
rigidities  and  persecutions,  their  civil  injuries  and  wrongs 
to  himself,  and  their  unchristian  dealing  with  him,  in  ex- 
communicating his  distracted  wife.  All  this  he  told  me  in 
his  lodgings,  at  Whitehall,  those  lodgings  which  I  was  told 
were  Canterbury's;  but  he  himself  told  me,  that  that  libra- 
ry, wherein  we  were  together,  was  Canterbury's,  and  given 
him  by  the  Parliament.  His  wife  lives  from  him  not 
wholly,  but  much  distracted.  He  tells  me  he  had  but  two 
hundred  a  year,  and  he  allowed  her  fourscore  per  annum 
of  it.  Surely,  Sir,  the  most  holy  Lord  is  most  wise  in  all 
the  trials  he  exerciseth  his  people  with.  He  told  me  that 
his  affliction  from  his  wife  stirred  him  up  to  action  abroad, 
and  when  success  tempted  him  to  pride,  the  bitterness  in 
his  bosom  comforts  was  a  cooler  and  a  bridle  to  him. 

"  Surely,  Sir,  your  father,  and  all  the  people  of  God  in 

England,  formerly  called  Puritaiius  Anglicanus,  of  late 

Koundheads,  now  the  Sectarians,   (as  more  or  less  cut  off 

rom  the  parishes)  are  now  in  the  saddle  and  at  the  helm, 

o  high  that  7ion  datur  descensus  nisi  cadendo.     Some  cheer 

ip  their  spirits  with  the  impossibility  of  another  fall  or  turn, 

o  doth    Major  Gen.  Harrison,  and  Mr.  Feake,   and  Mr. 

John  Simson,  now  in  Windsor  Castle  for  preaching  against 

this  last  change,  and  against  the  Protector,  as  an  usurper, 

*  Mr.  Winthrop  had  married  a  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Hugh  Peters. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  263 

Richard  III.,  &.c.  So  did  many  think  of  the  last  Parlia- 
ment, who  were  of  the  vote  of  fifty-six  against  priests  and 
tithes,  opposite  to-  the  vote  of  the  tifty-four  who  were  for 
them,  at  least  for  a  while.  Major  Gen.  Harrison  was  the 
second  in  the  nation  of  late,  when  the  loving  General  and 
himself  joined  against  the  former  Long  Parliament  and  dis- 
solved them,  but  now  being  the  head  of  the  fifty-six  party, 
he  was  confined  by  the  Protector  and  Council,  within  five 
miles  of  his  father's  house,  in  Staffordshire.  That  sen- 
tence he  not  obeying,  he  told  me  (the  day  before  my  leav- 
ing London)  he  was  to  be  sent  prisoner  into  Harfordshire. 
Surely,  Sir,  he  is  a  very  gallant,  most  deserving,  heavenly 
man,  but  most  high  flown  for  the  kingdom  of  the  saints, 
and  the  fifth  monarchy  now  risen,  and  their  sun  never  to 
set  again,  &lc.  Others,  as  to  my  knowledge,  the  Protector, 
Lord  President  Lawrence,  and  others  at  helm,  with  Sir 
Henry  Vane,  (retired  into  Lincolnshire,  yet  daily  missed 
and  courted  for  his  assistance)  are  not  so  full  of  that  faith 
of  miracles,  but  still  imagine  changes  and  persecutions  and 
the  very  slaughter  of  the  witnesses,  before  that  glorious 
morning  so  much  desired  of  a  worldly  kingdom,  if  ever 
such  a  kingdom  (as  literally  it  is  by  so  many  expounded) 
be  to  arise  in  this  present  world  and  dispensation. 

"  Sir,  I  know  not  how  far  your  judgment  hath  concurred 
with  the  design  against  the  Dutch.  I  must  acknowledge 
my  mourning  for  it,  and  when  I  heard  of  it,  at  Portsmouth, 
I  confess  I  wrote  letters  to  the  Protector  and  President, 
from  thence,  as  against  a  most  uningenuous  and  unchristian 
design,  at  such  a  time,  when  the  world  stood  gazing  at  the 
so  famous  treaty  for  peace,  which  was  then  between  the 
two  States,  and  near  finished  when  we  set  sail.  Much  I 
can  tell  you  of  the  answer  I  had  from  Court,  and  I  think 
of  the  answers  I  had  from  heaven,  viz.  that  the  Lord  would 
graciously  retard  us  until  the  tidings  of  peace  (from  Eng- 
land) might  quench  the  fire  in  the  kindling  of  it. 

''  Sir,  I  mourn  that  any  of  our  parts  were  so  madly  in- 
jurious to  trouble  yours.  I  pity  poor  Sabando.  I  yet  have 
hopes  in  God  that  we  shall  be  more  loving  and  peaceable 
neighbors.  I  had  word  from  the  Lord  President  to  Ports- 
mouth, that  the  Council  had  passed  three  letters  as  to  our 
business.  First,  to  encourage  us  ;  second,  to  our  neighbor 
colonies  not  to  molest  us:  third,  in  exposition  of  that  word 


264  MEMOIR     OF 

dominion,  in  the  late  frame  of  the  government  of  England, 
viz.  that  liberty  of  conscience  should  be  maintained  in  all 
American  plantations,  &lc. 

"  Sir,  a  great  man  in  America  told  me,  that  he  thought 
New-England  would  not  bear  it.  I  hope  better,  and  that 
not  only  the  necessity,  but  the  equity,  piety  and  Christianity 
of  that  freedom  will  more  and  more  shine  forth,  not  to 
licentiousness,  (as  all  mercies  are  apt  to  be  abused)  but  to 
the  beauty  of  Christianity  and  the  lustre  of  true  faith  in 
God  and  love  to  poor  mankind,  &-c. 

"  Sir,  I  have  desires  of  keeping  home.  I  have  long  had 
scruples  of  selling  the  natives  aught  but  what  may  bring 
or  tend  to  civilizing :  I  therefore  neither  brought,  nor  shall 
sell  them,  loose  coats  nor  breeches.  It  pleased  the  Lord 
to  call  me  for  some  time,  and  with  some  persons,  to  prac- 
tise the  Hebrew,  the  Greek,  Latin,  French  and  Dutch. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Council,  (Mr.  Milton)  for  my  Dutch 
I  read  him,  read  me  many  more  languages.  Grammar 
rules  begin  to  be  esteemed  a  tyranny.  I  taught  two  young 
gentlemen,  a  Parliament  man's  sons,  as  we  teach  our  chil- 
dren English,  by  words,  phrases  and  constant  talk,  &c.  I 
have  begun  with  mine  own  three  boys,  who  labor  besides  ; 
others  are  coming  to  me. 

"  Sir,  I  shall  rejoice  to  receive  a  word  of  your  healths, 
of  the  Indian  wars,  and  to  be  ever  yours, 

"  R.  W. 

"  Sir,  I  pray  seal  and  send  the  enclosed." 

Among  other  remarkable  passages,  in  the  foregoing  let- 
ter, the  allusion  to  Milton  is  not  the  least  interesting.  He 
was  then  the  Secretary  of  the  government,  and  in  that 
office  he  honored  the  English  name,  by  his  eloquent  writings 
in  defence  of  liberty.  Mr.  Williams  was  naturally  attract- 
ed to  a  communion  with  the  lofty  spirit  of  Milton.  His 
was  a  kindred  mind,  imbued  with  the  same  love  of  liberty, 
and  alike  free  from  selfish  ends.  Both  encountered  perse- 
cution, and  endured  poverty  for  their  principles.  They 
both  acted  in  the  same  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  good 
of  others ;  and  Mr.  Williams  might  have  used,  with  equal 
truth  and  propriety,  the  magnanimous  and  almost  tri- 
umphant language  of  Milton,  in  his  sonnet  on  the  loss  of 


ift  O  G  E  R    WILLIAMS.  26^ 

his  sight,  which  was  hastened  by  his  intense  application  to 
his  noble  "  Defensio  pro  Populo  Anglicano." 

"  I  argue  not 
Against  Heavens  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  a  jot 
Of  heart  or  hope,  but  still  bear  up,  and  steer 
Right  onward." 

The  preceding  letter  bears  an  incidental  testimony  to 
the  various  learning  of  Milton,  and  it  implies,  that  Mr. 
Williams  was  sufficiently  versed  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin,  Dutch  and  French  languages,  to  teach  them.  It 
shows,  moreover,  that,  like  Milton  himself,  and  Dr.  John- 
son, and  othei*  distinguished  men,  Mr.  Williams  employed 
himself  in  the  honorable  office  of  an  instructor  of  youth ; 
an  office  worthy  of  the  most  gifted  mind,  and  which  ranks, 
in  the  estimate  of  sober  reason,  second  to  no  other  function, 
except  that  of  the  teacher  of  religion.  This  fact  is  the 
more  honorable  to  Mr.  Williams,  because  he  became  a 
teacher,  as  a  means  of  subsistence,  while  he  was  serving 
his  colony  in  England.* 

*  It  appears,  that  while  Mr.  Williams  was  in  England,  he  was 
obliged  to  provide  for  his  own  support,  while  his  large  family,  we 
may  presuu}e,  were  injured  by  his  absence.  The  General  Assembly 
of  the  towns  of  Providence  and  Warwick,  expressed  in  a  letter,  their 
regret,  that  they  could  not  send  him  money,  in  consequence  of  tiieir 
domestic  trials,  but  informed  him  tha,t  they  meant  to  aid  his  family. 
In  his  "Bloody  Tenet  made  more  Bloody,"  he  mentions  his  exertions 
to  supply  the  poor  in  London  v/ith  fuel,  during  the  civil  wars ;  to 
which  service  he  was  led.  probably,  by  his  benevolent  and  active 
temper,  as  well  as  by  the  desire  to  obtain  a  subsistence.  He  says  : 
'•  I  can  tell,  that  when  these  discussions  were  prepared  for  the  pubhc 
in  London,  his  time  was  eaten  up  in  attendance  upon  the  service  of 
the  Parliament  and  city,  for  the  supply  of  the  poor  of  the  city  with 
wood,  during  the  stop  of  the  coalfrom  Newcastle,  and  the  mutinies  of 
the  poor  for  tiring  [for  which  service,  he  adds  in  a  note,  through  the 
hurry  of  the  times  and  the  necessity  of  his  departure,  he  lost  his  rec- 
ompense to  this  day.]  It  is  true,  he  might  have  run  the  road  of  pre- 
ferment, as  well  in  Old  as  in  Nevv^-England,  and  have  had  the  leisure 
and  time  of  such  who  eat  and  drink  w  ith  the  drunken,  and  smite 
with  the  fist  of  wickedness  their  fellow-servants."  (p.  38.)  In  his 
letter  to  the  town  of  Providence,  in  1654,  he  says,  "  I  was  unfortu- 
nately fetched  and  drawn  from  my  employment,  and  sent  to  so  vast 
distance  from  my  family  to  do  your  work  of  a  high  and  costly  nature, 
for  so  many  days,  and  weeks,  and  months  togetlier,  and  there  left  to 
starve,  or  steal,  or  beg,  or  borrow.  But  blessed  be  God,  who  gave  me 
favor  to  borrow  one  while,  and  to  work  another,  and  thereby  to  pay 
your  debts  there,  and  to  come  over  with  your  credit  and  honor,  as  an 

23* 


^66  M  E  M  0  I  ft     OP 

In  the  following  letter  to  the  town  of  Providence,  Mr, 
Williams  alludes,  in  affecting  terms,  to  his  toils  and  sacri* 
fices,  and  to  the  ungrateful  requital  with  which  they  had 
been  met  by  some  individuals  : 

"  Well  beloved  friends  and  neighbors, 
''  I  am  like  a  man  in  a  great  fog.  I  know  not  well  how 
to  steer.  I  fear  to  run  upon  the  rocks  at  home,  having  had 
trials  abroad.  I  fear  to  run  quite  backward,  as  men  in  a 
mist  do,  and  undo  all  that  I  have  been  a  long  time  undoing 
myself  to  do,  viz.  to  keep  up  the  name  of  a  people,  a  free 
people,  not  enslaved  to  the  bondages  and  iron  yokes  of  the 
great  (both  soul  and  body)  oppressions  of  the  English  and 
barbarians  about  us,  nor  to  the  divisions  and  disorders 
within  ourselves.  SinCe  I  set  the  first  step  of  any  English 
foot  into  these  wild  parts,  and  have  maintained  a  chargea- 
ble and  hazardous  correspondence  with  the  barbarians,  and 
spent  almost  five  years'  time  with  the  state  of  England,  to 
keep  oflT  the  rage  of  the  English  against  us,  what  have  I 
reaped  of  the  root  of  being  the  stepping-stone  of  so  many 
families  and  towns  about  us,  but  grief,  and  sorrow,  and 
bitterness?  I  have  been  charged  with  folly  for  that  free- 
dom and  liberty  which  I  have  always  stood  for  ;  I  say  lib- 
erty and  equality,  both  in  land  and  government.  I  have 
been  blamed  for  parting  with  Moshassuck,  and  afterward 
Pawtuxet,  (which  were  mine  own  as  truly  as  any  man's  coat 
upon  his  back,)  without  reserving  to  myself  a  foot  of  land, 
or  an  inch  of  voice  in  any  matter,  more  than  to  my  servants 
and  strangers.  It  hath  been  told  me  that  I  labored  for  a 
licentious  and  contentious  people ;  that  I  have  foolishly 
parted  with  town  and  colony  advantages,  by  which  I  might 
have  preserved  both  town  and  colony  in  as  good  order  as 
any  in  the  country  about  us.  This,  and  ten  times  more,  I 
have  been  censured  for,  and  at  this  present  am  called  a 
traitor,  by  one  party,  against  the  state  of  England,  for  not 
maintaining  the  charter  and  the  colony ;  and  it  is  said  that 
I  am  as  good  as  banished  by  yourselves,  and  that  both  sides 
wished  that  I  might  never  have  landed,  that  the  fire  of  con- 
agent  from  you,  who  had  in  your  name  grappled  with  tlie  agents  and 
friends  of  all  your  enemies  round  about  you."  Few  stronger  exam- 
ples of  disinterested  patriotism  could  be  found  in  any  age  or  coun- 
try. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  267 

t^ntion  might  have  had  no  stop  in  burning.  Indeed,  the 
words  have  been  so  sharp  between  myself  and  some  lately, 
that  at  last  I  was  forced  to  say,  they  might  well  silence  all 
complaints  if  I  once  began  to  complain,  who  was  unfortu- 
nately fetched  and  drawn  from  my  employment,  and  sent 
to  so  vast  distance  from  my  family,  to  do  your  work  of  a 
high  and  costly  nature,  for  so  many  days  and  weeks  and 
months  together,  and  there  left  to  starve,  or  steal,  or  beg  or 
borrow.  But  blessed  be  God,  who  gave  me  favor  to  borrow 
one  while,  and  to  work  another,  and  thereby  to  pay  your 
debts  tlifire,  and  to  come  over  with  your  credit  and  honor, 
as  an  agent  from  you,  who  had,  in  your  name,  grappled 
with  the  agents  and  friends  of  all  your  enemies  round  about 
you.  I  am  told  that  your  opposites  thought  on  me,  and 
provided,  as  I  may  say,  a  sponge  to  wipe  off  your  scores 
and  debts  in  England,  but  that  it  was  obstructed  by  your- 
selves, who  rather  meditated  on  means  and  new  agents  to  be 
sent  over,  to  cross  what  Mr.  Clarke  and  I  obtained.  But, 
gentlemen,  blessed  be  God,  who  faileth  not,  and  blessed  be 
his  name  for  his  wonderful  Providences,  by  which  alone 
this  town  and  colony,  and  that  grand  cause  of  Truth  and 
Freedom  of  Conscience,  hath  been  upheld  to  this  day. 
And  blessed  be  his  name  who  hath  again  quenched  so 
much  of  our  fires  hitherto,  and  hath  brought  your  names 
and  his  own  name  thus  far  out  of  the  dirt  of  scorn,  re- 
proach, &/C.  I  find  among  yourselves  and  your  opposites 
that  of  Solomon  true,  that  the  contentions  of  brethren 
(some  that  lately  were  so)  are  the  bars  of  a  castle,  and  not 
easily  broken;  and  I  have  heard  some  of  both  sides  zeal- 
ously talking  of  undoing  themselves  by  a  trial  in  England. 
Truly,  friends,  I  cannot  but  fear  you  lost  a  fair  wind  lately, 
when  this  town  was  sent  to  for  its  deputies,  and  you  were 
not  pleased  to  give  an  overture  unto  the  rest  of  the  inhab- 
itants about  it;  yea,  and  when  yourselves  thought  that  I  in- 
vited you  to  some  conference  tending  to  reconciliation,  be- 
fore the  town  should  act  in  so  fundamental  a  business,  you 
were  pleased  to  forestall  that,  so  that  being  full  of  grief, 
shame  and  astonishment,  yea,  and  fear  that  all  that  is  now 
done,  especially  in  our  town  of  Providence,  is  but  provok- 
ing the  spirits  of  men  to  fury  and  desperation,  I  pray  your 
leave  to  pray  you  to  remember  (that  which  I  lately  told  your 
opposites)  only  by  pride  cometh  contention.     If  there   be 


268  MEMOIR     OP 

humility  on  the  one  side,  yet  there  is  pride  on  the  other,  and 
certainly  the  eternal  God  will  engage  against  the  proud.     1 
therefore  pray  you  to  examine,  as  I  have  done  them,  your 
proceedings  in  this  first  particular.     Secondly,  Love  cover- 
eth  a  multitude  of  sins.     Surely  your  charges  and  complaints 
each  against  other,  have  not  hid    nor  covered  any  thing, 
as  we  use  to  cover  the  nakedness  of  those  we  love.     If  you 
will  now  profess  not    to  have  disfranchised    humanity  and 
love,  but  that,  as  David  in  another  case,  you  will  sacrifice 
to  the  common  peace,   and  common  safety,    and  common 
credit,  that  which   may  be   said  to  cost  you  something,  I 
pray  your  loving  leave  to  tell  you,   that  if  I  were  in  your 
soul's  case,  I  would  send  unto  your  opposites  such  a  line  as 
this  ;  '  Neighbors,  at  the  constant  request,  and   upon  the 
constant  mediation   which  our  neighbor   Roger  Williams^ 
since  his  arrival,  hath  used  to  us,  both  for  pacification  and 
accommodation  of  our   sad  differences,  and  also   upon  the 
late   endeavors  in  all  the  other  towns  for  an   union,  we  are 
persuaded  to  remove  our  obstruction,  viz.  that  paper  of  con- 
tention between  us,  and  to  deliver  it  into  the  hands  of  oui" 
aforesaid  neighbor,  and  to  obliterate  that  order,  which  that 
paper  did  occasion.     This  removed,  you  may  be  pleased  to 
meet  with,  and  debate  freely,  and  vote  in  all   matters  with 
us,  as  if  such  grievances  had  not  been  amongst  us.     Sec* 
ondly,  if  yet  aught  remain  grievous,   which  we  ourselves, 
by  free  debate  and  conference,  cannot  compose,  we  offer  to 
be  judged  and  censured  by  four  men,  which  out  of  any  part 
of  the  colony  you  shall  choose  two,  and  we  the  other.' 

"Gentlemen,  I  only  add,  that  I  crave  your  loving  pardon 
to  your  bold  but  true  friend, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  pathetic  earnestness,  and  conciliatory  yet  dignified 
tone  of  this  letter,  produced  a  favorable  effect.  At  a  town 
meeting  held  in  Providence,  in  August,  Mr.  Williams  was 
requested  to  prepare  an  answer  to  Sir  Henry  Vane's  letter, 
in  the  name  of  the  town.  This  answer,  dated  August  27, 
1654,  is  as  follows.  It  bears  the  characteristics  of  Mr. 
Williams'  style,  and  it  expresses  his  opinions  of  certain 
public  men  and  measures  : 
*'Sir, 

*'  Although  we  are  aggrieved  at  your  late  retirement  from 


ROGER    WILLIAMS. 

the  helm  of  public  affairs,  yet  we  rejoice  to  reap  the  sweet 
fruits  of  your  rest  in  your  pious  and  loving  lines,  most  sea- 
sonably sent  unto  us.  Thus  the  sun,  when  he  retires  his 
brightness  from  the  world,  yet  from  under  the  very  clouds 
we  perceive  his  presence,  and  enjoy  some  light  and  heat 
and  sweet  refreshings.  Sir,  your  letters  were  directed  to 
all  and  every  particular  town  of  this  Providence  colony. 
Surely,  Sir,  among  the  many  providences  of  the  Most  High, 
towards  this  town  of  Providence,  and  this  Providence  colo- 
ny, w^e  cannot  but  see  apparently  his  gracious  hand,  provid- 
ing your  honorable  self  for  so  noble  and  true  a  friend  to  an 
outcast  and  despised  people.  From  the  first  beginning  of 
this  Providence  colony,  occasioned  by  the  banishment  of 
some  in  this  place  from  the  Massachusetts,  we  say  ever 
since  to  this  very  day,  we  have  reaped  the  sweet  fruits  of 
your  constant  loving  kindness  and  favor  towards  us.  Oh, 
Sir,  whence,  then,  is  it  that  you  have  bent  your  bow,  and 
shot  your  sharp  and  bitter  arrows  now  against  us?  Whence 
is  it  that  you  charge  us  with  divisions,  disorders,  &lc.  ?  Sir, 
we  humbly  pray  your  gentle  acceptance  of  our  two  fold 
answer. 

''  First,  we  have  been  greatly  disturbed  and  distracted  by 
the  ambition  and  covetousness  of  some  amongst  us.  Sir, 
we  were  in  complete  order,  until  Mr.  Coddington,  wanting 
that  public,  self-denying  spirit  which  you  commend  to  us  in 
your  letter,  procured,  by  most  untrue  information,  a  monop- 
oly of  part  of  the  colony,  viz.  Rhode-Island,  to  himself, 
and  so  occasioned  our  general  disturbance  and  distractions. 
Secondly,  Mr.  Dyre,  with  no  less  want  of  a  public  spirit, 
being  ruined  by  party  contentions  with  Mr.  Coddington, 
and  being  betrusted  to  bring  from  England  the  letters  of 
the  Council  of  State  for  our  re-unitings,  he  hopes  for  a  re- 
cruit to  himself  by  other  men's  goods  ;  and,  contrary  to 
the  State's  intentions  and  expressions,  plungeth  himself  and 
some  others  in  most  unnecessary  and  unrighteous  plunder- 
ing, both  of  Dutch  and  French,  and  English  also,  to  our 
great  grief,  who  protested  against  such  abuse  of  our  power 
from  England  ;  and  the  end  of  it  is  to  the  shame  and  re- 
proach of  himself,  and  the  very  English  name,  as  all  these 
parts  do  witness. 

"  Sir,  our  second  answer  is,  (that  we  may  not  lay  all  the 
load  upon  other  men's  backs,)  that  possibly  a  sweet  cup  hath 


270  MEMOIR     OF 

rendered  many  of  us  wanton  and  too  active,  for  we  have 
long  drunk  of  the  cup  of  as  great  liberties  as  any  people 
that  we  can  hear  of  under  the  whole  heaven.  We  have 
not  only  been  long  free  (together  with  all  New-England) 
from  the  iron  yoke  of  wolvish  bishops,  and  their  popish 
ceremonies,  (against  whose  cruel  oppressions  God  raised 
up  your  noble  spirit  in  Parliament,)  but  we  have  sitten 
quiet  and  dry  from  the  streams  of  blood  spilt  by  that  war 
in  our  native  country.  We  have  not  felt  the  new  chains 
of  the  Presbyterian  tyrants,  nor  in  this  colony  have  we 
been  consumed  with  the  over-zealous  fire  of  the  (so  called) 
godly  christian  magistrates.  Sir,  we  have  not  known  what 
an  excise  means  ;  we  have  almost  forgotten  what  tythes  are, 
yea,  or  taxes  either,  to  church  or  commonwealth.  We 
could  name  other  special  privileges,  ingredients  of  our 
sweet  cup,  which  your  great  wisdom  knows  to  be  very 
powerful  (except  more  than  ordinary  watchfulness)  to  ren- 
der the  best  of  men  wanton  and  forgetful.  But,  blessed  be 
your  love,  and  your  loving  heart  and  hand,  awakening  any 
of  our  sleepy  spirits  by  your  sweet  alarm  ;  and  blessed  be 
your  noble  family,  root  and  branch,  and  all  your  pious  and 
prudent  engagements  and  retirements.  We  hope  you  shall 
no  more  complain  of  the  saddening  of  your  loving  heart 
by  the  men  of  Providence  town  or  of  Providence  colony, 
but  that  when  we  are  gone  and  rotten,  our  posterity  and 
children  after  us  shall  read  in  our  town  records  your  pious 
and  favorable  letters  and  loving  kindness  to  us,  and  this 
our  answer,  and  real  endeavor  after  peace  and  righteous- 
ness;  and  to  be  found.  Sir,  your  most  obliged,  and  most 
humble  servants,  the  town  of  Providence,  in  Providence 
colony,  in  New-England. 

"GREGORY  DEXTER, 

Town  Clerk r 

The  town  of  Providence,  at  the  nistance  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liams, and  the  other  towns,  as  we  may  presume,  by  his  in- 
fluence, appointed  commissioners,  who  met  on  the  31st  of 
August,  and  re-established  the  government  on  its  old 
foundations.*     They   appointed   a  general  election,   to  be 


*  The  names  of  the  commissioners,  are  preserved  by  Backus,  vol. 
p.  296,  copied  from  the  Providence  records. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  '271 

held  at  Warwick,  on  the  12th  of  September,  at  which  Mr. 
Williams  was  chosen  President  of  the  colony,  and,  togeth- 
er with  Mr.  Gregory  Dexter,  was  requested  to  "  draw  forth 
and  send  letters  of  humble  thanksgiving  to  his  Highness, 
the  Lord  Protector,  and  Sir  Henry  Vane,  Mr.  Holland, 
and  Mr.  John  Clarke,  in  the  name  of  the  colony  ;  and  Mr. 
Williams  is  desired  to  subscribe  them,  by  virtue  of  his 
office." 

By  the  wisdom,  and  the  firm  yet  healing  gentleness  of 
Mr.  Williams,  was  the  colony  thus  re-united,  after  a  disor- 
derly interval  of  several  years.  The  little  bark  was 
rescued  from  the  rocks  which  threatened  her  destruction, 
and  once  more  launched  forth,  her  faithful  pilot  at  the 
helm,  and  her  banner,  displaying  her  chosen  motto 
*'Hope,"  floating  again  upon  the  breeze.* 

The  following  letter  to  the  government  of  Massachusetts, 
alludes  to  some  disturbances  with  the  Indians,  which  oc- 
curred about  this  time.  Ninigret,  the  Niantick  sachem, 
had  made  war  with  the  Indians  of  Long  Island,!  and  was 
supposed  to  be  in  alliance  with  the  Dutch  at  NeAv-York. 
The  commissioners  of  the  united  colonies  sent  a  consid- 
erable force  against  Ninigret,  under  the  command  of  Ma- 
jor Willard,  of  Massachusetts,  but  they  returned  without 
success,  the  sachem  and  his  warriors  having  taken  refuge 
in  a  swamp.  Th«  real  cause,  perhaps,  why  the  war  was 
not  vigorously  waged,  was,  that  Massachusetts  was  opposed 
to  hostilities,  and  with  a  wisdom  and  humanity  which  hon- 
ored her  rulers,  prevented  at  this  time,  as  she  had  done  on 
a  former  occasion,  a  general  war  with  the  natives. |    We  may 

"There  is  a  slight  anachronism  here.  It  was  in  May,  1664,  that 
the  General  Assembly  "  ordered,  that  the  seal  with  the  motto  Rhode 
Island  and  Providence  Plantations,  with  the  word  Hope  over  the  an- 
chor, be  the  present  seal  of  the  colony."  The  seal  adopted  in  1647, 
when  the  government  was  organized  under  the  first  charter,  bore 
simply  an  anchor. 

t  Ninigret  returned  a  haughty  answer  to  a  message  from  the  com- 
missioners. He  said,  that  he  attacked  the  Long-Island  Indians,  be- 
cause they  had  killed  a  sachem's  son,  and  sixty  of  his  men,  and  he 
would  not  make  peace  with  them.  He  asked  of  the  commissioners, 
in  a  tone,  which  showed  that  he  considered  the  Narragansets  as  a  per- 
fectly independent  nation:  '-'If  your  Governor's  son  was  slain, and 
several  other  men,  would  you  ask  counsel  of  another  nation  when  and 
how  to  right  yourselves?" 

t  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  172. 


272  MEMOIR     OF 

hope,  that  the  admirable  letter  of  Mr.  Williams  had  some 
effect  in  producing  this  pacific  temper : 

^'  Providence,  5,  8,  54,  (so  called.) 
"  Much  honored  Sirs, 

*'  I  truly  wish  you  peace,  and  pray  your  gentle  accept- 
ance of  a  word,  I  hope  not  unreasonable. 

"  We  have  in  these  parts  a  sound  of  your  meditations  of 
war  against  these  natives,  amongst  whom  Ave  dwell.  I 
consider  that  war  is  one  of  those  three  great,  sore  plagues, 
with  which  it  pleaseth  God  to  affect  the  sons  of  men.  I 
consider,  also,  that  I  refused,  lately,  many  offers  in  my  na- 
tive country,  out  of  a  sincere  desire  to  seek  the  good  and 
peace  of  this. 

**  I  remember,  that  upon  the  express  advice  of  your  ever 
honored  Mr.  Winthrop,  deceased,*  I  first  adventured  to 
begin  a  plantation  among  the  thickest  of  these  barba- 
rians. 

*'  That  in  the  Pequod  wars,  it  pleased  your  honored  gov- 
ernment to  employ  me  in  the  hazardous  and  weighty  ser- 
vice of  negotiating  a  league  between  yourselves  and  the 
Narragansets,  when  the  Pequod  messengers,  who  sought 
the  Narragansets'  league  against  the  English,  had  almost 
ended  that  my  work  and  life  together. 

"  That  at  the  subscribing  of  that  solemn  league,  which, 
by  the  mercy  of  the  Lord,  I  had  procured  with  the  Narra- 
gansets, your  government  was  pleased  to  send  unto  me  the 
copy  of  it,  subscribed  by  all  hands  there,  which  yet  I  keep 
as  a  monument  and  a  testimony  of  peace  and  faithfulness 
between  you  both. 

''  That,  since  that  time,   it  hath  pleased  the  Lord  so  to 

*  Governor  Winthrop  died,  at  Boston,  on  the  26th  of  March,  1649, 
in  the  62d  year  of  his  age.  He  was  born  in  Groton,  Suffolk,  (Eng.) 
January  12,  1588.  He  was  a  justice  of  peace  at  the  age  of  eighteen. 
He  had  an  estate  of  six  or  seven  hundred  pounds  a  year,  which  he 
turned  into  money,  and  embarked  his  all  to  promote  the  settlement  of 
New-England,  file  was  eleven  times  chosen  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  spent  his  whole  estate  in  the  public  service.  His  son 
and  grandson  were  successively  Governors  of  Connecticut.  He  was 
a  great  and  good  man.  His  Journal  is  a  monument  to  his  memory — 
"  aere  perennius."  He  was  a  sincere  friend  of  Roger  Williams, 
though  he  disapproved  his  principles,  and  Mr.  Williams  always  spoke 
of  him  with  strong  affection. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  273 

order  it,  that  I  have  been  more  or  less  interested  and 
used  in  all  your  great  transactions  of  war  or  peace,  be- 
tween the  English  and  the  natives,  and  have  not  spared 
purse,  nor  pains,  nor  hazards,  (very  many  times,)  that  the 
whole  land,  English  and  natives,  might  sleep  in  peace  se- 
curely. 

"  That  in  my  last  negotiations  in  England,  with  the  Par- 
liament, Council  of  State,  and  his  Highness,*  I  have 
been  forced  to  be  known  so  much,  that  if  I  should  be 
silent,  I  should  not  only  betray  mine  own  peace  and  yours, 
but  also  should  be  false  to  their  honorable  and  princely 
names,  whose  loves  and  affections,  as  well  as  their  supreme 
authority,  are  not  a  little  concerned  in  the  peace  or  war  of 
this  country. 

"  At  my  last  departure  for  England,  I  was  importuned  by 
the  Narraganset  sachems,  and  especially  by  Ninigret,  to 
present  their  petition  to  the  high  sachems  of  England,  that 
ihey  might  not  be  forced  from  their  religion,  and,  for  not 
changing  their  religion,  be  invaded  by  war  ;  for  they  said 
they  were  daily  visited  with  threatenings  by  Indians  that 
came  from  about  the  Massachusetts,  that  if  they  would 
not  pray,  they  should  be  destroyed  by  war.  With  this 
their  petition  I  acquainted,  in  private  discourses,  divers  of 
the  chief  of  our  nation,  and  especially  his  Highness,  who, 
in  many  discourses  I  had  with  him,  never  expressed  the 
least  tittle  of  displeasure,  as  hath  been  here  reported,  but, 
in  the  midst  of  disputes,  ever  expressed  a  high  spirit  of 
love  and  gentleness,  and  was  often  pleased  to  please  him- 
self with  very  many  questions,  and  my  answers,  about  the 
Indian  affairs  of  this  country  ;  and,  after  all  hearing  of 
yourself  and  us,  it  hath  pleased  his  Highness  and  his 
Council  to  grant,  amongst  other  favors  to  this  colony,  some 
expressly  concerning  the  very  Indians,  the  native  inhabit- 
ants of  this  jurisdiction. 

"  I,  therefore,  humbly  offer  to  your  prudent  and  impar- 
tial view,  first,  these  two  considerable  terms,  it  pleased  the 
Lord  to  use  to  all  that  profess  his  name  (Rom.  12 :  18,)  if 
it  be  possible,  and  all  men. 

"  I  never  was  against  the  righteous  use  of  the  civil 
sword  of  men  or  nations,  but  yet  since  all  men  of  con- 

*  Cromwell. 
24 


5274 


MEMOIR      OF 


science  or  prudence  ply  to  windward,  to  maintain  their 
wars  to  be  defensive,  (as  did  both  King  and  Scotch,  and 
English,  and  Irish  too,  in  the  late  wars,)  I  humbly  pray 
your  consideration,  whether  it  be  not  only  possible,  but 
very  easy,  to  live  and  die  in  peace  with  all  the  natives  of 
this  country. 

"For,  secondly,  are  not  all  the  English  of  this  land^ 
generally,  a  persecuted  people  from  their  native  soil  ?  and 
hath  not  the  God  of  peace  and  Father  of  mercies  made 
these  natives  more  friendly  in  this,  than  our  native  coun- 
trymen in  our  own  land  to  us  ?  Have  they  not  entered 
leagues  of  love,  and  to  this  day  continued  peaceable  com- 
merce with  us  1  Are  not  our  families  grown  up  in  peace 
amongst  them  ?  Upon  which  I  humbly  ask,  how  it  can 
suit  with  Christian  ingenuity  to  take  hold  of  some  seeming 
occasions  for  their  destructions,  which,  though  the  heads 
be  only  aimed  at,  yet,  all  experience  tells  us,  falls  on  the 
body  and  the  innocent. 

"  Thirdly,  I  pray  it  may  be  remembered  how  greatly  the 
name  of  God  is  concerned  in  this  affair,  for  it  cannot  be 
hid,  how  all  England  and  other  nations  ring  with  the  glo- 
rious conversion  of  the  Indians  of  New-England.  You 
know  how  many  books  are  dispersed  throughout  the  na- 
tion, of  the  subject,  (in  some  of  them  the  Narraganset 
chief  sachems  are  publicly  branded,  for  refusing  to  pray 
and  be  converted  ;)  have  all  the  pulpits  in  Ensjland  been 
commanded  to  sound  of  this  glorious  work,  (I  speak  not 
ironically,  but  only  mention  what  all  the  printed  books 
mention,)  and  that,  by  the  highest  command  and  authority 
of  Parliament,  and  church  wardens  went  from  house  to 
house,,  to  gather  supplies  for  this  work. 
"  Honored  Sirs, 

*'  Whether  I  have  been  and  am  a  friend  to  the  natives'* 
turning  to  civility  and  Christianity,  and  whether  I  have 
been  instrumental,  and  desire  so  to  be,  according  to  my 
light,  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  ;  only  I  beseech  you  con- 
sider, how  the  name  of  the  most  holy  and  jealous  God  may 
be  preserved  between  the  clashings  of  these  two,  viz  :  the 
glorious  conversion  of  the  Indians  in  New-England,  and 
the  unnecessary  wars  and  cruel  destructions  of  the  Indians 
in  New-England. 

"  Fourthly,  I  beseech  you  forget  not,  that  although  we 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  275 

^re  apt  to  play  with  this  plague  of  war  more  than  with  the 
other  two,  famine  and  pestilence,  yet  I  beseech  you  con- 
sider how  the  present  events  of  all  wars  that  ever  have 
been  in  the  world,  have  been  wonderful  fickle,  and  the 
future  calamities  and  revolutions,  wonderful  in  the  latter 
€nd. 

"  Heretofore,  not  having  liberty  of  taking  ship  in  your 
jurisdiction,  I  was  forced  to  repair  unto  the  Dutch,  where 
mine  eyes  did  see  that  first  breaking  forth  of  that  Indian 
war,  which  the  Dutch  begun,  upon  the  slaughter  of  some 
Dutch  by  the  Indians  ;  and  they  questioned  not  to  finish 
it  in  a  few  days,  insomuch  that  the  name  of  peace,  which 
some  offered  to  mediate,  was  foolish  and  odious  to  them. 
But  before  we  weighed  anchor,  their  bowries  were  in 
flames  ;  Dutch  and  English  were  slain.  Mine  eyes  saw 
their  flames  at  their  towns,  and  the  flights  and  hurries  of 
men,  women  and  children,  the  present  removal  of  all  that 
could  for  Holland  ;  and,  after  vast  expenses,  and  mutual 
slaughters  of  Dutch,  English,  and  Indians,  about  four 
years,  the  Dutch  were  forced,  to  save  their  plantation  from 
ruin,  to  make  up  a  most  unworthy  and  dishonorable  peace 
with  the  Indians. 

"  How  frequently  is  that  saying  in  England,  that  both 
Scotch  and  English  had  better  have  borne  loans,  ship 
money,  &c.  than  run  upon  such  rocks,  that  even  suc- 
cess and  victory  have  proved,  and  are  yet  like  to  prove. 
Yea,  this  late  war  with  Holland,  however  begun  with  zeal 
against  God's  enemies,  as  some  in  Parliament  said,  yet 
v/hat  fruits  brought  it  forth,  but  the  breach  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, the  enraging  of  the  nation  by  taxes,  the  ruin  of 
thousands  who  depended  on  manufactures  and  merchan- 
dize, the  loss  of  many  thousand  seamen,  and  others,  many 
of  whom  many  worlds  are  not  worthy  1 

"  But,  lastly,  if  any  be  yet  zealous  of  kindling  this  fire 
for  God,  &LC.  I  beseech  that  gentleman,  whoever  he  be,  to 
lay  himself  in  the  opposite  scale,  with  one  of  the  fairest 
buds  that  ever  the  sun  of  righteousness  cherished,  Josiah, 
that  most  zealous  and  melting-hearted  reformer,  who  would 
to  war,  and  against  warnings,  and  fell  in  most  untimely 
death  and  lamentations,  and  now  stands,  a  pillar  of  salt  to 
all  succeeding  generations. 

'^  Now^  with  your  patience,   a  word  to  these   nations  at 


276  MEMOIR     OF 

war,  (occasion  of  yours,)  the  Narragansets  and  Long- 
Islanders,  I  know  them  both  experimentally,  and  therefore 
pray  you  to  remember, 

"  First,  that  the  Narragansets  and  Mohawks  are  the  two 
great  bodies  of  Indians  in  this  country,  and  they  are  con- 
federates, and  long  have  been,  and  they  both  yet  are 
friendly  and  peaceable  to  the  English.  I  do  humbly  con- 
ceive, that  if  ever  God  calls  us  to  a  just  war  with  either  of 
them,  he  calls  us  to  make  sure  of  the  one  to  a  friend.  It 
is  true  some  distaste  was  lately  here  amongst  them,  but  they 
parted  friends,  and  some  of  the  Narragansets  went  home 
with  them,  and  I  fear  that  both  these  and  the  Long-Island- 
ers and  Mohegans,  and  all  the  natives  of  the  land,  may, 
upon  the  sound  of  a  defeat  of  the  English,  be  induced 
easily  to  join  each  with  other  against  us. 

"2.  The  Narragansets,  as  they  were  the  first,  so  they 
have  been  long  confederates  with  you ;  they  have  been 
true,  in  all  the  Pequod  wars,  to  you.  They  occasioned  the 
Mohegans  to  come  in,  too,  and  so  occasioned  the  Pequods' 
downfall. 

**  3.  I  cannot  yet  learn,  that  ever  it  pleased  the  Lord  to 
permit  the  Narragansets  to  stain  their  hands  with  any 
English  blood,  neither  in  open  hostilities  nor  secret  mur- 
ders, as  both  Pequods  and  Long-Islanders  did,  and  Mohe- 
gans also,  in  the  Pequod  wars.  It  is  true  they  are  barba- 
rians, but  their  greatest  offences  against  the  English  have 
been  matters  of  money,  or  petty  revenging  of  themselves 
on  some  Indians,  upon  extreme  provocations,  but  God  kept 
them  clear  of  our  blood. 

"  4.  For  the  people,  many  hundred  English  have  exper- 
imented them  to  be  inclined  to  peace  and  love  with  the 
English  nation. 

"  Their  late  famous  long-lived  Canonicus  so  lived  and 
died,  and  in  the  same  most  honorable  manner  and  solem- 
nity (in  their  way)  as  you  laid  to  sleep  your  prudent  peace- 
maker, Mr.  Winthrop,  did  they  honor  this,  their  prudent 
and  peaceable  prince.  His  son,  Mexham*,  inherits  his 
spirit.  Yea,  through  all  their  towns  and  countries,  how 
frequently  do  many,  and  oft-times  one  Englishman,  travel 
alone  with  safety  and  loving  kindness  I 

*  This  name  is  spelled  in  several  different  wa.js. 


ilOGER     WILLIAMS.  27^ 

"  The  cause  and  root  of  all  the  present  mischief,  is  the 
pride  of  two  barbarians,  Ascassassotic,  the  Long-Island 
sachem,  and  Ninigret,  of  the  Narraganset.  The  former 
is  proud  and  foolish ;  the  latter  is  proud  and  fierce.  I 
have  not  seen  him  these  many  years,  yet  from  their  sober 
men  I  hear  he  pleads, 

*'  First,  that  Ascassassotic,  a  very  inferior  sachem,  bear- 
ing himself  upon  the  English,  hath  slain  three  or  four  of 
his  people,  and  since  that,  sent  him  challenges  and  darings 
'to  fight,  and  mend  himself. 

"  2.  He,  Ninigret,  consulted,  by  solemn  messengers, 
with  the  chief  of  the  English  Governors,  Major  Endicott, 
then  Governor  of  the  Massachusetts,  who  sent  him  an  im- 
plicit consent  to  right  himself,  upon  v/hich  they  all  plead 
that  the  English  have  just  occasion  of  displeasure. 

''  3.  After  he  had  taken  revenge  upon  the  Long-Island- 
ers, and  brought  away  about  fourteen  captives,  divers  of 
their  chief  women,  yet  he  restored  them  all  again,  upon 
the  mediation  and  desire  of  the  English. 

"  4.  After  this  peace  made,  the  Long-Islanders,  pretend- 
ing to  visit  Ninigret,  at  Block-Island,  slaughtered  of  his 
Narragansets  near  thirty  persons,  at  midnight,  two  of  them 
of  great  note,  especially  Wepiteammoc's  son,  to  whom 
Ninigret  was  uncle. 

"5.  In  the  prosecution  of  this   war,  although   he  had 
drawn  down  the  Islanders  to  his  assistance,  yet,  upon  pro- 
'testation    of    the    English     against    his    proceedings,     he 
retreated,  and  dissolved  his  army. 
"  Honored  Sirs, 

"  1.  I  know  it  is  said  the  Long-Islanders  are  subjects; 
but  I  have  heard  this  greatly  questioned,  and,  indeed,  I 
question  whether  any  Indians  in  this  country,  remain- 
ing barbarous  and  pagan,  may  with  truth  or  honor  be  called 
the  English  subjects. 

"  2.  But  grant  them  subjects,  what  capacity  hath  their  late 
massacre  of  the  Narragansets,  with  whom  they  had  made 
peace,  without  the  English  consent,  though  still  under  the 
English  name,  put  them  into  ? 

''  3.  All  Indians   are   extremely  treacherous  ;  and  if  to 

their  own  nation,  for  private  ends,  revolting  to  strangers, 

what  will  they   do  upon  the  sound  of  one   defeat  of  the 

English,  or  the  trade  of  killing  English  cattle,  and  persons, 

24* 


^78  MEMOIR     Of* 

and  plunder,  which  will,  most  certainly  be  the  trade,  if  any 
considerable  party  escape  alive,  as  mine  eyes  beheld  in  the 
Dutch  war. 

**  But,  I  beseech  you,  say  your  thoughts  and  the  thoughts 
of  your  wives  and  little  ones,  and  the  thoughts  of  all  English, 
and  of  God's  people  in  England,  and  the  thoughts  of  his 
Highness  and  Council,  (tender  ofthese  parts,)  if,  for  the  sake 
of  a  few  inconsiderable  pagans,  and  beasts,  wallowing  in 
idleness,  stealing,  lying,  whoring,  treacherous  witchcrafts, 
blasphemies,  and  idolatries,  all  that  the  gracious  hand  of 
the  Lord  hath  so  wonderfully  planted  in  the  wilderness, 
should  be  destroyed. 

*'  How  much  nobler  were  it,  and  glorious  to  the  name 
of  God  and  your  own,  that  no  pagan  should  dare  to  use  the 
name  of  an  English  subject,  who  comes  not  out,  in  some 
degree,  from  barbarism  to  civility,  in  forsaking  their  filthy 
nakedness,  in  keeping  some  kind  of  cattle,  which  yet  your 
councils  and  commands  may  tend  to,  and,  as  pious  and 
prudent  deceased  Mr.  Winthrop  said,  that  civility  may  be 
a  leading  step  to  Christianity,  is  the  humble  desire  of  your 
most  unfeigned  in  all  services  of  love, 

*' ROGER    WILLIAMS, 
of  Providence  colony, 

President^ 

Though  Mr.  Williams  had  succeeded  in  restoring  the 
regular  operation  of  the  government,  there  were  not  want- 
ing individuals  who  were  uneasy  and  restive  under  re- 
straints. A  person,  about  this  time,  sent  a  paper  to  the 
town  of  Providence,  affirming  "  that  it  was  blood-guiltiness, 
and  against  the  rule  of  the  Gospel,  to  execute  judgment 
upon  transgressors  against  the  private  or  public  weal." 
This  principle  struck  at  the  foundation  of  all  civil  society. 
There  were,  as  we  may  easily  suppose,  some  individuals, 
who  had  been  drawn  to  Rhode-Island  by  the  prospect  of 
enjoying  liberty,  and  who  would  gladly  have  cast  off  all 
restraint,  and  revelled  in  unbounded  license. 

Mr.  Williams  could  not  remain  silent,  while  such  senti- 
ments were  avowed.  He  accordingly  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  the  town.  It  is,  in  every  respect,  worthy  of  him. 
It  presents,  briefly,  his  principles  of  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty, illustrated    by   a   happy    comparison,    and    carefully 


k  6  G  E  R     WILLIAMS.  ^79 

guarded  by  limitations,  exact,  clear,  and  in  harmony  with 
the  dictates  of  reason  and  Scripture.  The  duty  of  civil 
obedience  is  maintained,  as  decisively  as  Mr.  Cotton  him- 
self could  have  wished ;  while  the  rights  of  conscience  are 
declared,  with  a  precision,  an  enlarged  comprehension  of 
mind,  and  a  liberality  of  feeling,  of  which  no  other  exam- 
ple could  be  found  at  that  early  day.  This  letter  is  a  suffi- 
cient reply  to  all  the  allegations  against  Mr.  Williams  of  a 
spirit  hostile  to  the  civil  peace  ;  and  it  may  be  added,  that 
the  church  which  he  fDunded  at  Providence,  and  all  the 
churches  of  the  same  faith  which  have  since  multiplied 
over  the  land,  have  maintained  precisely  the  same  views  of 
civil  and  relio;ious  duties  and  rights : 

*'  That  ever  I  should  speak  or  write  a  tittle  that  tends  to 
such  an  infinite  liberty  of  conscience,  is  a  mistake,  and 
which  I  have  ever  disclaimed  and  abhorred.  To  prevent 
Riich  mistakes,  I  at  present  shall  only  propose  this  case  : 
There  goes  many  a  ship  to  sea,  with  many  hundred  souls 
in  one  ship,  whose  weal  and  w^oe  is  common,  and  is  a  true 
picture  of  a  commonwealth,  or  a  human  combination  or 
society.  It  hath  fallen  out  sometimes  that  both  Papists 
and  Protestant?,  Jews  and  Turks,  may  be  embarked  in  one 
ship ;  upon  which  supposal  I  affirm,  that  all  the  liberty  of 
conscience,  that  ever  I  pleaded  for,  turns  upon  these  two 
hinges :  that  none  of  the  Papists,  Protestants,  Jews  or 
Turks,  be  forced  to  come  to  the  ship's  prayers  or  worship, 
nor  compelled  from  their  own  particular  prayers  or  worship, 
if  they  practise  any.  I  further  add,  that  I  never  denied, 
that  notwithstanding  this  liberty,  the  commander  of  this 
ship  ought  to  command  the  ship's  course,  yea,  and  also 
command  that  justice,  peace  and  sobriety  be  kept  and 
practised,  both  among  the  seamen  and  all  the  passengers. 
If  any  of  the  seamen  refuse  to  perform  their  service,  or 
passengers  to  pay  their  freight ;  if  any  refuse  to  help,  in 
person  or  purse,  towards  the  common  charges  or  defence  ; 
if  any  refuse  to  obey  the  common  laws  and  orders  of  the 
ship,  concerning  their  common  peace  or  preservation ;  if 
any  shall  mutiny  and  rise  up  against  their  commanders 
and  officers ;  if  any  should  preach  or  write  that  there 
ought  to  be  no  commanders  or  officers,  because  all  are 
equal  in  Christ,  therefore  no  masters  nor  officers,  nor  laws 


280  MEMOIR     OF* 

nor  orders,  no  corrections  nor  punishments ;  I  say,  1  nevelr 
denied,  but  in  such  cases,  whatever  is  pretended,  the  com- 
mander or  commanders  may  judge,  resist,  compel  and 
punish  such  transgressors,  according  to  their  deserts  and 
merits.  This,  if  seriously  and  honestly  minded,  may,  if  it 
so  please  the  Father  of  Lights,  let  in  some  light  to  such  as 
willingly  shut  not  their  eyes. 

"  I  remain  studious  of  your  common  peace  and  liberty. 

ROGER  WILLIAMS/' 


n  O  G  E  R      W  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  28 1 


CHAPTER    XXI. 


Troubles  in  E.hode-Island— William  Harris — Quakers — severe  laws 
ag^ainst  them  in  other  colonies — conduct  of  Rhode-Island — Mr. 
Williams  and  Mr.  Harris — Mr.  Williams  not  re-elected  as  President. 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Williams  to  Mr.  Winthrop 
is  chiefly  on  his  common  theme,  the  Indians : 

"  To  my  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  Winthrop,  at  Pequod, 
these  present. 

^^ Providence^  the  26,  2,  55,  [so  called.) 
'•'  Sir, 

"  Loving  respects  to  you  both  presented,  wishing  you  a 
joyful  spring  after  all  your  sad  and  gloomy,  sharp  and  bit- 
ter winter  blasts  and  snows.  Sir,  one  of  your  friends  among 
the  Narraganset  sachems,  Mexham,  sends  this  messenger 
unto  me  and  prays  me  to  write  to  you  for  your  help  about 
a  gun,  which  Kittatteash,  Uncas  his  son,  hath  lately  taken 
from  this  bearer,  Ahauansquatuck,  out  of  his  house  at  Paw- 
chauquet.  He  will  not  own  any  offence  he  gave  him,  but 
that  he  is  subject  to  Mexham,  though  possibly  Kittatteash 
may  allege  other  causes,  yea  and  true  also.  I  doubt  not 
of  your  loving  eye  on  the  matter,  as  God  shall  please  to 
give  you  opportunity.  Sir,  the  last  first  day  divers  of  Bos- 
ton merchants  were  with  me,  (about  Sergeant  Holsey  run 
from  Boston  hither,  and  a  woman  after  him,  who  lays  her 
great  belly  to  him.)  They  tell  me,  that  by  a  bark  come 
from  Virginia,  they  are  informed  of  God's  merciful  hand  in 
the  safe  arrival  of  Major  Sedgwick  and  that  fleet  in  the 
West  of  England,  and  that  General  Penn  was  not  yet  gone 
out,  but  riding  (all  things  ready)  in  Torbay,  waiting  for 
the  word ;  and  by  letters  from  good  and  great  friends  in 
England,  I  understand  there  are  like  to  be  great  agitations 
in  this  country,  if  that  fleet  succeed. 

"  Sir,  a  hue  and  cry  came  to  my  hand  lately  from  the  Gov- 
ernor at  Boston,  after  two  youths,  one  run  from  Captain 
Oliver,  whom  I  lighted  on  and  have  returned;  another  from 
James  Bill,  of  Boston,  who  I  hear  past  through  our  town,  and 


282  MEMOIR     OF 

said  he  was  bound  for  Pequod.  His  name  is  James  Pitnie  ; 
he  hath  on  a  blackish  coat  and  hat,  and  a  pair  of  greenish 
breaches  and  green  knit  stockings.  I  would  now  (with 
very  many  thanks)  have  returned  you  your  Jesuit's  Max- 
ims, but  I  was  loth  to  trust  them  in  so  wild  a  hand,  nor 
some  tidings  which  I  have  from  England.  These  mer- 
chants tell  me,  that  Blake  was  gone  against  the  Duke  of 
Legorne,  and  had  sent  for  ten  frigates  more.  Sir,  the  God 
of  peace  fill  your  soul  with  that  strange  kind  of  peace  which 
passeth  all  understanding. 

"  So  prays.  Sir, 

'"  Your  unworthy  R.  W." 

Mr.  Williams,  being  now  invested  with  the  office  of 
President,  watched  over  the  interests  of  the  colony  with  his 
usual  vigilance  and  zeal.  There  was  an  urgent  need  of  all 
his  wisdom  and  firmness.  A  disposition  to  abuse  the  liberty 
of  conscience,  was  one  of  the  evils  which  disturbed  the  col- 
ony. Mr.  William  Harris  "  sent  his  writings  to  the  main 
and  to  the  island,  against  all  earthly  powers,  parliaments, 
laws,  charters,  magistrates,  prisons,  punishments,  rates,  yea, 
against  all  kings  and  princes,  under  the  notion  that  the 
people  should  shortly  cry  out,  ^No  lords,  no  masters,'  and 
in  open  Court  protested,  before  the  whole  colony  Assembly, 
that  he  would  maintain  his  writings  with  his  blood."* 

The  avowal  of  such  sentiments  might  well  alarm  the  As- 
sembly, not  only  for  the  peace  of  the  colony,  but  for  its 
character  in  the  mother  country.  They  accordingly  ap- 
pointed a  committee,  says  Mr.  Backus,  "to  deal  with  Mr. 
Harris." 

Although  the  several  towns  were  re-united  in  the  gov- 
ernment, yet  individuals,  who  were  royalists  in  principle, 
refused  to  obey  it,  and  created  factions.  Complaints  were 
made  through  Mr.  Clarke,  to  the  Protector  ;  but  Cromwell 
was  too  busy  with  concerns  at  home,  to  give  much  atten- 
tion to  the  colonies.  He  addressed  the  following  letter  to 
the  colony  :  t 


*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  302.  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes, 
p.  14. 

t  The  General  Assembly  voted,  that  Mr.  Williams  should  keep 
Cromweirs  letter  and  the  charter  in  his  possession,  in  behalf  of  the 
colony. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS. 

"  Gentlemen, 
"  Your  agent  here  hath  represented  unto  us  some  par- 
ticulars concerning  your  government,  which  you  judge 
necessary  to  be  settled  by  us  here,  but  by  reason  of  other 
great  and  weighty  affairs  of  the  commonwealth,  we  have 
been  necessitated  to  defer  the  consideration  of  them  to  fur- 
ther opportunity ;  in  the  mean  time,  we  are  willing  to  let 
you  know,  that  you  were  to  proceed  in  your  government 
according  to  the  tenor  of  your  charter,  formerly  granted 
on  that  behalf,  taking  care  of  the  peace  and  safety  of  those 
plantations,  that  neither  through  intestine  commotions  or 
foreign  invasions,  there  do  arise  any  detriment  or  dishonor 
to  their  commonwealth  or  yourselves,  as  far  as  you  by  your 
care  and  diligence  can  prevent.  And  as  for  the  things  that 
are  before  us,  they  sliall,  as  soon  as  the  other  occasions  will 
permit,  receive  a  just  and  sufficient  determination.  And 
so  we  bid  you  farewell,  and  rest, 

"Your  very  loving  friend, 

"OLIVER,   P. 

''March  29,  1655. 
**  To  our  trusty  and  well  beloved  the  President,  Assistants 
and  inhabitants  of  Rhode-Island,  together  v/ith  Narragan- 
set  Bay,  in  New-England." 

At  the  session  of  the  Assembly,  June  28,  an  act  v/as 
passed,  founded  on  the  Protector's  letter,  in  which  it  was 
enacted,  that  "  if  any  person  or  persons  be  found,  by  the 
examination  and  judgment  of  the  General  Court  of  Com- 
missioners, to  be  a  ring-leader  or  ring-leaders  of  factions  or 
divisions  among  us,  he  or  they  shall  be  sent  over  at  his  or 
their  own  charges,  as  prisoners,  to  receive  his  or  their  trial 
or  sentence,  at  the  pleasure  of  his  Highness,  and  the  Lords 
of  his  Council." 

This  act  proves,  that  the  Assembly,  while  they  recog- 
nized the  rights  of  conscience,  were  resolved  to  enforce  civil 
obedience.  It  produced  the  desired  effect.  Mr.  Codding- 
ton  soon  after  signed  a  public  declaration  of  his  submission 
to  the  government  of  the  colony,  as  now  united,  and  he  and 
Mr.  Dyre  subscribed,  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Williams  and 
Others,  an  agreement,  by  which  the  long-standing  feud  be- 
tween them  was   amicably  settled.     Mr.  Harris,  also,  felt 


284  MEMOIR     OF 

the  genial  influence  of  the  better  spirit  which  now  prevailed, 
and  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Backus,  "  cried  up  government  and 
magistrates,  as  much  as  he  had  cried  them  down  before." 

In  November,  1655,  Mr.  Williams  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  in  which  he 
remonstrated,  though  in  a  courteous  tone,  against  the  dis- 
orders which  still  continued  at  Warwick  and  Pawtuxet,  and 
which  were  countenanced,  if  not  fomented,  by  Massachu- 
setts. We  learn  from  this  letter,  and  from  other  sources, 
that  the  inhabitants  of  Rhode-Island  were  not  allowed  to 
procure  arms  and  ammunition  from  Boston,  though  they 
were  exposed  to  attacks  from  the  savages,  who  were  abun- 
dantly supplied  from  various  quarters.*  Mr.  Williams 
modestly  alludes  to  his  sufferings,  when  he  attempted  to 
pass  through  Massachusetts,  at  his  last  embarkation  for 
England.  With  all  these  causes  of  complaint,  the  mildness 
of  this  letter  must  be  deemed  a  favorable  evidence  of  a  gen- 
tle and  pacific  temper.  The  solemn  confession,  that  it 
might  be  better  for  Rhode-Island  to  be  placed  under  the 
sway  of  Massachusetts,  certainly  does  honor  to  his  feelings, 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  wisdom  : 

"  Copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  President  of 
Providence  Plantations,  to  the  General  Court  of  Magistrates 
and  Deputies  assembled,  at  Boston. 

*  Winthrop,  vol.  ii.  p.  172,  after  stating,  that  an  application  from 
Newport,  for  powder  and  other  ammunition  was  rejected,  says.  "  it 
was  an  error,  (in  state  policy  at  last)  not  to  support  them,  for  though 
they  were  desperately  erroneous,  and  in  such  distractions  among 
themselves  as  portended  their  ruin,  yet,  if  the  Indians  should  prevail 
against  them,  it  would  be  a  <j^reat  advantage  to  the  Indians  and 
danser  to  the  v^^liole  country."  About  the  year  1G55,  Mr.  Clarke  sent 
over  from  England  four  barrels  of  powder,  and  eight  of  shot  and 
bullets,  which  were  consigned  to  Mr.  Williams,  and  left,  by  order 
of  the  General  Assembly,  in  his  possession.  While  provision  was 
thus  made  for  defence  against  the  Indians,  measures  were  adopted 
to  prevent  hostilities.  At  a  town  meeting  in  Providence,  June  24, 
1655,  at  v/hich  Mr.  Williams  was  moderator,  it  was  voted,  that  if 
any  person  should  sell  a  gallon  of  wine  or  spirits  to  an  Indian,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  he  should  forfeit  six  pounds,  one  half  to  tlie 
informer,  and  the  other  half  to  the  town.  Among  the  measures 
adopted  for  defence,  was  the  following  order,  passed  in  town  meet- 
ing, March  6,  1655-G  :  "  Ordered,  that  liberty  is  given  to  as  many  as 
please  to  erect  a  fortification  upon  the  Stamper's  Hill,  or  about  their 
own  houses." 


KCGEK     WILL  JAM  9.  285> 

''  Pi'ovidence,  15,  ^mo.  55,  (so  called.) 

"  Much  honored  Sirs, 

"  It  is  my  humble  and  earnest  petition  unto  God  and  you^ 
that  you  may  so  be  pleased  to  exercise  command  over  your 
own  spirits,  that  you  may  not  mind  myself  nor  the  English 
of  these  parts  (unworthy  with  myself  of  your  eye)  but  only 
that  face  of  equity  (English  and  Christian)  which  I  hum- 
bly hope  may  appear  in  these  representations  following. 

"First,  may  it  please  you  to  remember,  that  concerning 
the  town  of  Warwick,  (in  this  colony)  there  lies  a  suit  of 
^000  damages  against  you  before  his  Highness  and  the 
Lords  of  his  Council ;  I  doubt  not,  if  you  so  please,  but 
that  (as  Mr.  Winslow  and  myself  had  well  nigh  ordered  it) 
some  gentlemen  from  yourselves  and  some  from  Warwick, 
deputed,  may  friendly  and  easily  determine  that  affair  be- 
tween you. 

"  Secondly,  the  Indians  which  pretend  your  name  at 
Warwick  and  Pawtuxet,  (and  yet  live  as  barbarously,  if  not 
more  than  any  in  the  country)  please  you  to  know  their 
insolencies  upon  ourselves  and  cattle  (unto  £20  damages 
per  annum)  are  insufferable  by  English  spirits;  and  please 
you  to  give  credence,  that  to  all  these  they  pretend  your 
name,  and  affirm  that  they  dare  not  (for  offending  you)  agree 
Avith  us,  nor  come  to  rules  of  righteous  neighborhood,  only 
they  know  you  favor  us  not  and  therefore  send  us  for  redress 
unto  you. 

"  Thirdly,  concerning  four  English  families  at  Pawtuxet^ 
may  it  please  you  to  remember  that  two  controversies  they 
have  long  (under  your  name)  maintained  with  us,  to  a  con- 
stant obstructing  of  all  order  and  authority  amongst  us. 

"  To  our  complaint  about  our  lands,  they  lately  have 
professed  a  willingness  to  arbitrate,  but  to  obey  his  Highness' 
authority  in  this  charter,  they  sa^,  they  dare  not  for  your 
sakes,  though  they  live  not  by  your  laws,  nor  bear  your 
common  charges,  nor  ours,  but  evade  both  under  color  of 
your  authority. 

"  Honored  Sirs,  I  cordially  profess  it  before  the  Most 
High,  that  I  believe  it,  if  not  only  they  but  ourselves  and 
all  the  wliolc  country,  by  joint  consent,  were  subject  to  your 
government,  it  might  be  a  rich  mercy  ;  but  as  things  yet  are, 
and  since  it  pleased  first  the  Parliament,  and  then  the  Lord 

25 


MEMOIR     OF 


Admiral  and  Committee  for  Foreign  Plantations,  and  since 
the  Council  of  State,  and  lastly  the  Lord  Protector  and  his 
Council,  to  continue  us  as  a  distinct  colon}-,  yea,  and  since 
it  hath  pleased  yourselves,  by  public  letters  and  references 
to  us  from  your  public  courts,  to  own  the  authority  of  his 
Highness  amongst  us  ;  be  pleased  to  consider  how  unsuita- 
ble it  is  for  yourselves  (if  these  families  at  Pawtuxet  plead 
truth)  to  be  the  obstructers  of  all  orderly  proceedings  amongst 
us ;  for  I  humbly  appeal  to  your  own  wisdom  and  expe- 
rience, how  unlikely  it  is  for  a  people  to  be  compelled  to 
order  and  common  charges,  when  others  in  their  bosoms, 
are  by  such  (seeming)  partiality  exempted  from  both. 

"And,  therefore,  (lastly)  be  pleased  to  know,  that  there 
are  (upon  the  point)  but  two  families  which  are  £0  obstruc- 
tive and  destructive  to  an  equal  proceeding  of  civil  order 
amongst  us  ;  for  one  of  these  four  families,  Stephen  Arnold, 
desires  to  be  uniform  with  us  ;  a  second,  Zacharie  Rhodes, 
being  in  the  way  of  dipping  is  (potentially)  banished  by  you. 
Only  William  Arnold  and  William  Carpenter,  (very  far, 
also,  in  religion,  from  you,  if  you  knew  all)  they  have  some 
color,  yet  in  a  late  conference,  they  all  plead  that  all  the 
obstacle  is  their  offending  of  yourselves. 

"Fourthly,  whereas,  (I  humbly  conceive)  with  the  peo- 
ple of  this  colony  your  commerce  is  as  great  as  with  any  in 
the  country,  and  our  dangers  (being  a  frontier  people  to  the 
barbarians)  are  greater  than  those  of  other  colonies,  and 
the  ill  consequences  to  yourselves  would  be  not  a  few  nor 
small,  and  to  the  whole  land,  were  we  first  massacred  or 
mastered  by  them.  I  pray  your  equal  and  favorable  refiec- 
tion  upon  that  your  law,  which  prohibits  us  to  buy  of  you 
all  means  of  our  necessary  defence  of  our  lives  and  families, 
(yea  in  this  most  bloody  and  massacrcing  time.) 

"  We  arc  informed  that  tickets  have  rarely  been  denied 
to  any  English  of  the  country;  yea,  the  barbarians  (though 
notorious  in  lies)  if  they  profess  subjection,  they  are  fur- 
nished ;  only  ourselves,  by  former  and  later  denial,  teem 
to  be  devoted  to  the  Indian  shambles  and  massacres. 

"  The  barbarians  all  the  land  over,  are  filled  with  artil- 
lery and  ammunition  from  the  Dutch,  openly  and  horridly, 
and  from  all  the  English  over  the  country,  (by  stealth.)  I 
know  they  abound  so  wonderfully,  that  their  activity  and 
insolence    is  grov/n  so  high  that  they   daily   consult,  and 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  287 

hope,  and  threaten  to  render  us  slaves,  as  they  long  since 
(and  now  most  horribly)  have  made  the  Dutch. 

"  For  myself  (as  through  God's  goodness)  I  have  refused 
the  gain  of  thousands  by  such  a  murderous  trade,  and  think 
no  law  yet  extant,  amongst  yourselves  or  us,  secure  enough 
against  such  villany ;  so  am  I  loth  to  see  so  many  hun- 
dreds (if  not  some  thousands)  in  this  colony,  destroyed  like 
fools  and  beasts  without  resistance.  I  grieve  that  so  much 
blood  should  cry  against  yourselves,  yea,  and  I  grieve  that 
(at  this  instant  by  these  ships)  this  cry  and  the  premises 
should  now  trouble  his  Highness  and  his  Council.  For  the 
seasonable  preventing  of  which,  is  this  humble  address  pre- 
sented to  your  wisdom,  by  him  who  desires  to  be 
''  Your  unfeigned  and  faithful  servant, 

''ROGER   WILLIAMS, 
^^  Of  Providence  Plantations,  President. 

"  Hon.  Sirs,  since  my  letter,  it  comes  into  my  heart  to 
pray  your  leave  to  add  a  word  as  to  myself,  viz.  at  my  last 
return  from  England  I  presented  your  then  honored  Gov- 
ernor, Mr.  Bellingham,  with  an  order  of  the  Lords  of  the 
Council,  for  my  free  taking  ship  or  landing  at  your  ports, 
unto  which  it  pleased  Mr.  Bellingham  to  send  me  his  assent 
in  writing ;  I  humbly  crave  the  recording  of  it  by  yourselves, 
lest  forgetfulness  hereafter,  again  put  me  upon  such  dis- 
tresses as,  God  knows,  I  suffered  when  I  last  past  through 
your  colony  to  our  native  country." 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  belongs  to  this 
period  : 

"  To  his  much  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop, 
at  Pequod  or  elsewhere,  these  presents. 

'^Providence,  21,  12,  55-6,  {so  called.) 
''  Sir, 

"This  opportunity  makes  me  venture  this  salutation, 
though  we  hear  question  of  your  being  at  Pequod.  These 
friends  can  say  more  of  affairs  than  I  can  write.  I  have 
letters  from  England  of  proceedings  there,  which  yet  are 
not  come ;  some  I  have  received,  which  tell  me,  that  the 
Lord  hath  yet  created  peace,  although  the  sword  is  yet 
forced  (by  garrisons)  to  enforce  it.  I  cannot  hear  of  open 
wars  with  France,  but  only  with  Spain,  and  that  the  prose- 


"288  ME  MO  IK    OT 

tjution  of  that  West  India  expedition  is  still  with  all  possible 
vigor  on  both  sides  intended.  This  diversion  against  the 
Spaniards  hath  turned  the  face  and  thoughts  of  many  Eng- 
lish ;  so  that  the  saying  of  thousands  now  is,  crown  the 
Protector  with  gold,  though  the  sullen  yet  cry,  crown  him 
with  thorns.  The  former  two  or  three  years  with  plenty 
imthankfully  received  in  England ;  the  Lord  sent  abun- 
dance ci^  waters  this  last  summer,  which  spoiled  their  corn 
over  most  parts  of  the  land.  Sir  Henry  Vane  being  retired 
to  his  own  private,  in  Lincohishire,  hath  now  published  his 
observations  as  to  religion ;  he  hath  sent  me  one  of  his  books, 
(though  yet  at  Boston.)  His  father  is  dead,  and  the  inherit- 
ance falls  to  him,  and  10  or  i'2,000  more  than  should  if  his 
father  had  lived  but  a  month  longer ;  but  though  his  father 
cast  him  off,  yet  he  hath  not  lost  in  temporals,  by  being  cast 
off  for  God.  Our  acquaintance,  Major  Sedgwick,  is  said  to 
be  successor  to  unsuccessful  Venables,  cast  into  the  tower. 
Your  brother  Stephen  succeeds  Major  General  Harrison. 
The  Pope  endeavors  the  uniting  of  all  his  slaves  for  his 
guard,  fearing  the  heretics.  The  Lord  knows  whether 
Archer  (upon  the  reign  of  Christ)  said  true,  'that  yet  the 
Pope,  before  his  downfall,  must  recover  England;  and  the 
protestant  countries  revolted  from  him.'  Sir,  we  are  sure 
all  flesh  is  grass,  and  only  the  word  of  the  Lord  endures 
forever.  Sir,  you  once  kindly  intended  to  quench  a  fire 
between  Mr.  Coddington  and  others,  but  now  it  is  come 
to  public  trial.  We  hear  the  Dutch  fire  is  not  quenched. 
I  fear  this  year  Vv^ill  be  stormy  ;  only  may  the  most  gracious 
Lord  by  all  drive  and  draw  us  to  himself,  in  whom.  Sir,  I 
desire  to  be  ever 

-  Yours,  R.  W." 

The  letter  of  November  15,  to  the  General  Court  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, did  not  produce  any  favorable  change  in  her 
measures.  Mr.  Williams  afterwards  wrote  to  the  Governor, 
Mr.  Endicott,  who  invited  him  to  visit  Boston.  The  fol- 
lowing address  to  the  General  Court  was  prepared,  in  which 
some  of  the  same  topics  are  again  touched : 

"  Copy  of  a  letter  from  Providence  Plantations  to  the 
General  Court  of  the  Massachusetts. 

«  Providence,  12,  3,  56,  {so  called.) 

•^*  May  it  please  this  much  honored  Assemblj  to  remem- 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  28§ 

ber,  that,  as  an  officer  and  in  the  name  of  Providence  colo- 
ny, I  presented  you  with  our  humble  requests  before  winter, 
unto  which  not  receiving  answer,  I  addressed  myself  this 
spring,  to  your  much  honored  Governor,  who  was  pleased 
to  advise  our  sending  of  some  of  Providence  to  your  As- 
sembly. 

"  Honored  Sirs,  our  first  request  (in  short)  was  and  is, 
for  your  favorable  consideration  of  the  long  and  lamentable 
condition  of  the  town  of  Warwick,  which  hath  been  thus  : 
they  are  so  dangerously  and  so  vexatiously  intermingled 
with  the  barbarians,  that  I  have  long  admired  the  wonder- 
ful power  of  God  in  restraining  and  preventing  very  great 
fires  of  mutual  slaughters,  breaking  forth  between  them. 

"  Your  wisdoms  know  the  inhuman  insultations  of  these 
wild  creatures,  and  you  mci,y  be  pleased,  also,  to  imagine, 
that  they  have  not  been  sparing  of  your  name  as  the  pa- 
tron of  all  their  wickedness  against  our  English  men,  women, 
and  children,  and  cattle  to  the  yearly  damage  of  60,  80  and 
100  pounds. 

"  The  remedy  is  (under  God)  only  your  pleasure,  tha;t 
Pumham  shall  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  town  or  col° 
ony,  and  that  some  convenient  way  and  time  be  set  for 
their  removal. 

''And  that  your  wisdom  may  see  just  grounds  for  such 
your  willingness,  be  pleased  to  be  informed  of  a  reality  of 
a  solemn  covenant  between  this  town  of  Warwick  and 
Pumham,  unto  which,  notwithstanding  that  he  pleads  his 
being  drawn  to  it  by  the  awe  of  his  superior  sachems,  yet 
I  humbly  oifer  that  what  was  done,  was  according  to  .the 
law  and  tenor  of  the  natives,  (I  take  it)  in  all  New-Eng= 
land  and  America,  viz.  that  the  inferior  sachems  and  sub= 
jects  shall  plant  and  remove  at  the  pleasure  of  the  highest 
and  supreme  sachems,  and  I  humbly  conceive  that  it  pleaseth 
the  Most  High  and  Only  Wise  to  make  use  of  such  a  bond 
of  authority  over  them,  without  which,  they  could  not  long 
subsist  in  human  society,  in  this  wild  condition  wherein 
they  are. 

"  2.  Please  you  not  to  be  insensible  of  the  slippery  and 
dangerous  condition  of  this  their  intermingled  cohabitation. 
I  am  humbly  confident,  that  all  the  English  towns  and 
plantations  in  all  New-England,  put  together,  suffer  not 
such  molestation  from  the  natives,  a.s  this  one  town  and 
25* 


^90  MEMOIR      OF 

people.  It  is  so  great  and  so  oppressive,  that  1  have  daily 
feared  the  tidings  of  some  public  fire  and  mischief 

"3.  Be  pleased  to  review  this  copy  from  the  Lord  Ad- 
miral, and  that  this  English  town  of  Warwick  should  pro- 
ceed, also  that  if  any  of  yours  Were  there  planted,  they 
should,  by  your  authority,  be  removed.  And  we  humbly 
conceive,  that  if  the  English  (whose  removes  are  difficult 
and  chargeable)  how  much  more  these  wild  ones,  who  re- 
move  with  little  more  trouble  and  damage  than  the  wild 
\)easts  of  the  wilderness. 

"  4.  Please  you  to  be  informed,  that  this  small  neck 
(wherein  th-ey  keep  and  mingle  fields  with  the  English)  i« 
a  very  den  of  wickedness,  where  they  not  only  practise  the 
horrid  barbarisms  of  all  kind  of  whoredoms,  idolatries,  con- 
jurations, but  living  without  all  exercise  of  actual  authority, 
and  getting  store  of  liquors  (to  our  grief)  there  is  a  confluence 
and  rendezvous  of  all  the  wildest  and  most  licentious  na- 
tives and  practices  of  the  whole  country. 

**  5.  Beside  satisfaction  to  Pumham  and  the  former  in- 
habitants of  this  neck,  there  is  a  competitor  who  must  also 
be  satisfied  ;  another  sachem,  one  Nawwushawsuck,  who 
(living  with  Ousamaquin)  lays  claim  to  this  place,  and  are 
at  daily  feud  with  Pumham  (to  my  knowledge)  about  the 
title  and  lordship  of  it.     Hostility  is  daily  threatened. 

"Our  second  request  concerns  two  or  three  English 
families  at  Pawtuxet,  who,  before  our  charter,  subjected 
themselves  unto  your  jurisdiction.  It  is  true,  there  are 
many  grievances  between  many  of  the  town  of  Providence 
and  them,  and  these,  I  humbly  conceive,  may  best  be 
ordered  to  be  composed  by  reference. 

"  But  (2.)  we  have  formerly  made  our  addresses  and  now 
do,  for  your  prudent  removal  of  this  great  and  long  obstruc- 
tion to  all  due  order  and  regular  proceedings  among  us,  viz. 
the  refusal  of  these  families  (pretending  your  name)  to 
conform  with  us  unto  his  Highness'  authority  amongst  us. 

"  3.  Your  wisdom  experimentally  knows  how  apt  men  are 
to  stumble  at  such  an  exemption  from  all  duties  and  services, 
from  all  rates  and  charges,  either  with  yourselves  or  us. 

"  4.  This  obstruction  is  so  great  and  constant,  that  (with- 
out your  prudent  removal  of  it)  it  is  impossible  that  either 
his  Highness  or  yourselves  can  expect  such  satisfaction  and 
observance  from  us  as  we  desire  to  render. 


U  6  G  E  R      WILLI  A  M  S,  291 

"  Lastly,  as  before,  we  promised  satisfaction  to  the  natives 
at  Warwick,  (and  shall  all  possible  ways  endeavor  their 
content)  so  we  humbly  offer,  as  to  these  our  countrymen, 
First,  as  to  grievances  depending,  that  references  may  set- 
tle them.  Secondly,  for  the  future,  the  way  will  be  open 
for  their  enjoyment  of  votes  atid  privileges  of  choosing  or 
being  chosen,  to  any  office  in  town  or  colony. 

"  Our  third  request  is,  for  your  favorable  leave  to  us  to 
buy  of  your  merchants,  four  or  more  barrels  of  powder 
yearly,  with  some  convenient  proportion  of  artillery,  con- 
sidering our  hazardous  frontier  situation  to  these  barbarians, 
who,  from  their  abundant  supply  of  arms  from  the  Dutch, 
(and  perfidious  English,  all  the  land  over)  are  full  of  our 
artillery,  which  hath  rendered  them  exceedingly  insolent, 
provoking  and  threatening,  especially  the  inlanders,  which 
have  their  supply  from  the  fort  of  Aurania.  We  have  been 
esteemed  by  some  of  you,  as  your  thorny  hedge  on  this  side 
of  you;  ifso,yet  a  hedge  to  be  maintained;  if  as  out  sentinels, 
yet  not  to  be  discouraged.  And  if  there  be  a  jealousy  of  the 
ill  use  of  such  a  favor,  please  you  to  be  assured  that  a  credible 
person  in  each  town  shall  have  the  disposal  and  managing 
of  such  supplies,  according  to  the  true  intent  and  purpose, 

*'  For  the  obtaining  of  these,  our  just  and  necessary  peti- 
tions, we  have  no  inducement  or  hope  from  ourselves,  only 
we  pray  you  to  remember,  that  the  matters  prayed,  are  no 
way  dishonorable  to  yourselves,  and  we  humbly  conceii^e, 
do  greatly  promote  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  his  Highness, 
yea,  of  the  Most  High,  also;  and  lastly,  such  kindnesses 
will  be  obligations  on  us  to  study  to  declare  ourselves,  upon 
all  occasions, 

'*  Your  most  humble  and  faithful  servants, 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS,  President. 

"In  the  name,  and  by  the  appointment,  of  Providence 
colony, 

"  Honored  Gentlemen, 

"  I  pray  your  patience  to  one  word  relating  to  myself, 
only.  Whereas,  upon  an  order  from  the  Lords  of  his  High- 
ness' Council,  for  my  future  security  in  taking  ships  and 
landing  in  your  ports,  it  pleased  your  honored  then  Gover- 
nor, Mr.  Bellingham,  to  obey  that  order  under  his  own 
hand,  I  now  pray  the  confirmation  of  it,  from  one  word  of 
this  honored  Court  assembled." 


■^9^  M  E  f.I  O  i  R      OF* 

A  few  days  after,  Mr.  Williams  addressed  the-  following 
letter  to  the  General  Court.  It  bears  the  unwonted  date 
of  Boston,  and  it  breathes  a  gratified  feeling : 

"  Copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  to  the  Gen- 
eral Court. 

"  Boston,  17,  3,  56,  {so  called.) 
"  May  it  please  this  much  honored  Assembly, 

"  I  do  humbly  hope,  that  your  own  breasts  and  the  pub- 
lic, shall  reap  the  fruit  of  your  great  gentleness  and  patience 
in  these  barbarous  transactions,  and  I  do  cordially  promise, 
for  myself,  (and  all  I  can  persuade  with)  to  study  gratitude 
and  faithfulness  to  your  service.  I  have  debated  with 
Pumham  (and  some  of  the  natives  helping  with  me)  who 
shewed  him  the  vexatious  life  he  lives  in,  your  great  respect 
and  care  toward  him,  by  which  he  may  abundantly  mend 
himself  and  be  united  in  some  convenience  unto  their  neigh- 
borhood and  your  service.  But  I  humbly  conceive,  in  his 
case,  that  dies  ct  qidcs  sanant  hominem,  and  he  must  have 
some  longer  breathing,  for  he  tells  me  that  the  appearance 
of  this  competitor  Nawwushawsuck,  hath  stabbed  him.  May 
you,  therefore,  please  to  grant  him  and  me  some  longer  time 
of  conference,  either  until  your  next  general  assembling, 
or  longer,  at  your  pleasure. 

"  My  other  requests  I  shall  not  be  importune   to  press 
on  your  great  affairs,  but  shall  make  my  address  unto  your 
Secretary,  to  receive,  by  him,  your  pleasure. 
"  Honored  gentlemen, 

"  Your  humble  and  thankful  servant,        R.  W." 

This  year  is  made  remarkable  by  the  arrival  at  Boston, 
of  several  persons,  of  the  new  sect  called  Quakers.*'    They 

*  This  religious  society,  says  Hannah  Adams,  '-began  to  be  dis- 
tinguished about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Their  doc- 
trines v/ere  first  promulgated  in  England,  by  George  Fox,  about  the 
year  1647,  for  which  he  was  imprisoned  at  Nottingham,  in  the  year 
1649,  and  the  year  following  at  Derby.  The  appellation  of  Quakers, 
was  given  them  by  way  of  contempt ;  some  say,  on  account  of  their 
tremblings  under  the  impression  of  divine  things  ;  but  tJiey  say  it  was 
first  given  them  by  one  of  the  magistrates,  who  committed  George 
Fox  to  prison,  on  account  of  his  bidding  him  and  those  about  him  to 
fremWe  at  the  vv'ord  of  the  Lord."  They  have  since  called  them- 
selves Friends.  The  wild  fanaticism  of  som.e  of  the  early  adherents 
of  the  sect,  no  more  resembles  the  quiet  demeanor  of  the  pious 
Friends  of  the  present  day,  than  the  policy  of  Massachusetts  in  1656, 
was  like  the  spirit  of  cur  cv/n  timea. 


R  a  G  E  R      AV^  I  L  L  I  A  M  S.  293 

were  imprisoned  and  banished.  The  books  which  they 
brought  with  them  were  seized  and  burnt.  Severe  laws 
were  enacted  to  exclude  them  from  the  Commonwealth. 
In  October,  1656,  (says  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  181,)  "An 
act  passed,  laying  a  penalty  of  one  hundred  pounds  upon 
the  master  of  any  vessel  who  should  bring  a  known  Qua- 
ker into  any  part  of  the  colony,  and  requiring  him  to 
give  security  to  carry  them  back  again  ;  that  the  Quaker 
should  be  immediately  sent  to  the  house  of  correction,, 
and  whipped  twenty  stripes,  and  afterwards  kept  to  hard 
labor  until  transportation.  They  also  laid  a  penalty  of 
five  pounds  for  importing,  and  the  like  for  dispersing^ 
Quaker  books,  and  severe  penalties  for  defending  their 
heretical  opinions.  And  the  next  year,  an  additional  law 
was  made,  by  which  all  persons  were  subjected  to  the  pen- 
alty of  forty  shillings  for  every  hour's  entertainment  given 
to  any  known  Quaker ;  and  any  Quaker^  after  the  first 
conviction,  if  a  man,  was  to  lose  one  ear,  and  the  second 
time  the  other  ;  a  woman,  each  time  to  be  severely  whipped, 
and  the  third  time,  men  or  women,  to  have  their  tongues 
bored  through  with  a  red  hot  iron,  and  every  Quaker,  who 
should  become  such  in  the  colony,  was  subjected  to  the  like 
punishments.  In  May,  1658,  a  penalty  of  ten  shillings  was 
laid  on  every  person  present  at  a  Quaker  meeting,  and  five 
pounds  upon  every  one  speaking  at  such  a  meeting.  Not- 
withstanding all  this  severity,  the  number  of  Quakers,  as 
might  well  have  been  expected,  increasing  rather  than  dimin- 
ishing, in  October  following,  a  further  law  was  made  for 
punishing  with  death  all  Quakers,  who  should  return  into 
the  jurisdiction  after  banishment." 

By  this  sanguinary  law,  which  passed  the  Court  by  a 
majority  of  one  vote  only,  four  persons  were  afterwards  ex- 
ecuted, and  a  large  number  were  imprisoned,  whipped, 
fined  and  banished,  until  an  order  from  the  King,  Charles 
II.  in  1661,  put  an  end  to  these  proceedings.  The  con- 
duct of  some  of  these  persons  was  scandalous,*  and  deserved 

*  "  At  Boston,  one  George  Wilson,  and  at  Cambridge,  Elizabeth 
Horton,  went  crying  through  the  streets,  that  the  Lord  was  coming 
with  fire  and  sword  to  plead  with  them.  Thomas  Newhouse  went 
into  the  meeting-house  at  Boston  with  a  couple  of  glass  bottles,  and 
broke  them  before  the  congregation,  and  threatened,  '  Thus'  will  the 
Lord  break  yoa  in  pieces.'     Another  time,  M.  Brewster  came  in  with 


294  MEMOIR      OF 

punishment,  as  offences  against  civil  order  and  decency  ; 
but  notihing  can  justify  the  severity  with  which  some  of 
them  were  treated.  The  impolicy  of  persecution  was  fully 
displayed  on  this  occasion  ;  for  the  Cluakers  multiplied,  in 
proportion  as  they  were  threatened  and  punished. 

The  other  united  colonies  passed  severe  laws  against  the 
Quakers  ;  and  they  endeavored  to  prevail  on  Rhode-Island 
to  unite  in  this  general  persecution.  But  she  remained 
true  to  her  principles.  The  General  Assembly,  which  met 
at  Portsmouth,  March  18,  1657,  returned  an  answer  to  the 
commissioners  of  the  united  colonies,  in  which  they  held 
this  language  : 

'*  Whereas  freedom  of  different  consciences  to  be  pro- 
tected from  enforcements,  was  the  principal  ground  of  our 
charter,  both  with  respect  to  our  humble  suit  for  it,  as  also 
to  the  true  intent  of  the  honorable  and  renowned  Parliament 
of  England,  in  granting  of  the  same  to  us,  which  freedom 
we  still  prize,  as  the  greatest  happiness  that  men  can  pos- 
sess in  this  world,  therefore  we  shall,  for  the  preservation 
of  our  civil  peace  and  order,  the  more  especially  take  notice 
that  those  people,  and  any  others  that  are  here,  or  shall 
come  among  us,  be  impartially  required,  and  to  our  utmost 
constrained,  to  perform  all  civil  duties  requisite.  And  in 
case  they  refuse  it,  v/e  resolve  to  make  use  of  the  first  op- 
portunity to  inform  our  agent,  residing  in  England." 

The  commissioners  were  not  satisfied  with  this  reply, 
and  the  next  autumn  they  wrote  again  to  the  Assembly. 
An  answer  was  returned,  dated  October  13,1657,  which, 
while  it  expresses  disapprobation  of  the  conduct  of  some  of 
the  Quakers,  unfolds  the  Rhode-Island  doctrine  concerning 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  contains  som_e  excellent  remarks 
on  the  good  effects  of  toleration  in  allaying  sectarian  zeal : 

"  As  concerninj  these  Quakers  (so  called)  which  are 
now  among  us,  we  have  no  law  among  us  whereby  to  punish 
any  for  only  declaring  by  words,  &lc.  their  minds  and  un- 
derstandings concerning  the  things  and  ways  of  God,  as  to 
salvation  and  an  eternal  condition.  And  we  find,  more- 
over, that  in  those  places  where  these  people,  aforesaid,  in 


her  face  besmeared,  and  as  black  as  a  coal.  Deborah  \^ilson  went 
through  the  streets  of  Salem,  naked  as  she  came  into  the  world,  for 
which  she  was  well  whipped." — Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  1H7. 


ROGER       WILLIAMS  295 

this  colony,  are  most  of  all  suffered  to  declare  themselves 
freely,  and  are  only  opposed  by  arguments  in  discourse, 
there  they  least  of  all  desire  to  come  ;  and  we  are  informed, 
that  they  begin  to  loathe  this  place,  for  that  they  are  not 
opposed  by  the  civil  authority,  but  with  all  patience  and 
meekness  are  suiFered  to  say  over  their  pretended  revela- 
tions and  admonitions,  nor  are  they  like  or  able  to  gain  many 
here  to  their  way.  And  surely  we  find,  that  they  delight 
to  be  persecuted  by  the  civil  powers,  and  when  they  are  so, 
they  are  like  to  gain  more  by  the  conceit  of  their  patient 
sufferings,  than  by  consent  to  their  pernicious  sayings." 
The  letter  then  expressed  a  belief,  that  their  doctrines  were 
dangerous  to  civil  government,  and  promised,  that  at  the 
next  General  Assembly,  the  subject  should  be  considered, 
and  proper  measures  adopted  to  prevent  any  "  bad  effects 
of  their  doctrines  and  endeavors."* 

This  letter  wis  not  suited  to  the  pre\  ailing  opinions  of 
that  day.  The  other  colonies  were  incensed  by  the  inflex-^ 
ible  adherence  of  Rhode-Island  to  the  principles  of  her 
founder.  The  commissioners  again  wrote  to  the  General 
Assemble,  virtually  requiring  Rhode-Island  to  unite  in  a 
general  persecution,  under  the  penalty  of  being  herself  put 
under  the  ban  of  an  excommunication  from  all  commercial 
intercourse  with  the  other  colonies.  This  attempt  to  force 
Rhode-Island  into  measures  subversive  of  her  own  institu- 
tions, and  abhorrent  to  her  feelings,  was  resisted  as  resolutely 
as  were  the  threats  of  the  British  ministry  by  a  subse- 
quent generation.  Rhode-Island  adopted  the  only  course 
then  left  to  her.  She  appealed  to  the  .covernment  in  Eng- 
land, for  protection,  v»-hiie  she  pursued  her  settled  policy. 
The  following  letter  to  Mr.  Clarke,  the  agent  of  the  colony 
in  England,  throws  much  light  on  her  condition  and  rela- 
tions at  that  time.  It  was  v/ritten  by  a  Committee  appoint- 
ed by  the  General  Assembly,  at  Warwick,  November  5, 
165S  :t 

"  Worthy  Sir,  and  trusty  friend,  Mr.  Clarke, 
"  We  have  found,  not  only  your  ability  and  diligence, 

*  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.  p.  454. — The  letter  is  signed  by  Benedict 
Arnold.  BiCsident;  William  Baulston,  Randall  Houlden.  Arthur 
Fenner.  and  William  Feild. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  pp.  313-316. 


*296  MEMOIR      OF 

but  also  your  love  and  care  to  be  such  concerning  the  wel- 
fare and  prosperity  of  this  colony,  since  you  have  been  in- 
trusted with  the  more  public  affairs  thereof,  surpassing  the 
no  small  benefit  which  we  had  of  your  presence  here  at 
home,  that  we  in  all  straits  and  incumbrances,  are  em- 
boldened to  repair  unto  you,  for  further  and  continued  care, 
counsel  and  help,  finding  that  your  solid  and  christian  de- 
meanor hath  gotten  no  small  interest  in  the  hearts  of  our 
superiors,  those  noble  and  worthy  senators,  with  whom  you 
had  to  do  in  our  behalf,  as  it  hath  constantly  appeared  in 
our  addresses  made  unto  them  ;  we  have  by  good  and  com- 
fortable proofs  found,  having  plentiful  experience  thereof 
The  last  year  we  had  laden  you  with  much  employment, 
which  we  were  then  put  upon  by  reason  of  some  too  refractory 
among  ourselves,  wherein  we  appealed  unto  you  for  advice, 
for  the  more  public  manifestation  of  it,  with  respect  to  our 
superiors ;  but  our  intelligence  fell  short  in  that  great  loss 
of  the  ship,  which  we  concluded  here  to  be  cast  away. 
We  have  now  a  new  occasion  given  us  by  an  old  spirit, 
with  respect  to  the  colonies  round  about  us,  who  seem  to 
be  offended  with  us,  because  a  sort  of  people,  called  by  the 
name  of  Quakers,  who  are  come  amongst  us,  who  have 
raised  up  divers  who  at  present  seem  to  be  of  their  spirit, 
whereat  the  colonies  about  us  seem  to  be  offended  with  us, 
being  the  said  people  have  their  liberty  with  us,  are  enter- 
tained in  our  houses,  or  any  of  our  assemblies ;  and  for  the 
present,  we  have  found  no  just  cause  to  charge  them  with 
the  breach  of  the  civil  peace ;  only  they  are  constantly 
going  forth  amongst  them  about  us,  and  vex  and  trouble 
them  about  their  rclio;ion  and  spiritual  state,  though  they 
return  with  many  a  foul  scar  in  their  bodies  for  the  same. 
And  the  offence  our  neighbors  take  against  us,  is  because 
we  take  not  some  course  against  the  said  people,  either  to 
expel  them  from  amongst  us,  or  take  such  courses  against 
them  as  themselves  do,  who  arc  in  fear  lest  their  religion 
should  be  corrupted  by  them.  Concerning  which  dis- 
pleasure that  they  seem  to  take,  it  was  expressed  to  us  in 
a  solemn  letter,  written  by  the  commissioners  of  the  united 
colonies  at  their  sitting,  us  thougli  tliey  would  either  bring 
us  in  to  act  according  to  their  scantling,  or  else  take  some 
course  to  do  us  a  greater  disj^leasure.  A  copy  of  which 
letter  we  have  herewith  sent/unto  you,  wherein  yon  may 


U  O  G  E  K      WILLIAM*.  297 

perceive  how  they  express  themselves ;  as  also  we  have 
herewith  sent  our  present  answer  unto  them,  to  give  you 
what  light  we  may  in  the  matter.  There  is  one  clause  in 
the  letter,  which  plainly  implies  a  threat,  though  courtly 
expressed,  as  their  manner  is ;  which  we  gather  to  be  this, 
that  themselves  (as  we  construe  it)  have  been  much  awed 
in  point  of  subjection  to  the  state  of  England,  lest  in  case 
they  should  decline,  England  might  prohibit  all  trade  with 
them,  botj^-  in  point  of  exportation  and  importation  of  any 
commodities,  which  were  a  hbst  sufFicientiy  prevalent  to 
subdue  Nevv  England,  not  being  able  to  stibsist : — even  so 
they  seem  to  threaten  us,  by  cutting  us  off  from  all  com- 
merce and  trade  with  them,  and  thereby  to  disable  us  from 
any  comfortable  subsistence,  being  that  the  concourse  of 
shipping,  and  all  other  sorts  of  commodities,  are  universally 
conversant  among  themselves  ;  as  also  knowing  that  our- 
selves are  not  in  a  capacity  to  send  out  shipping  of  our- 
selves, which  in. great  measure  is  occasioned  ky  their  op- 
pressing uSy  as  yourself  well  knows  :— as  in  many  other 
respects,  so  in  this  for  one,  that  we  cannot  have  any  thing 
from  them,  for  the  supply  of  our  necessities,  but  in  effect 
they  make  the  price,  both  of  their  commodities  and  our 
owHi  Also,  because  we  have  no  English  coin,  but  only 
that  which  passeth  among  these  barbarians,  and  such  com- 
modities as  are  raised  by  the  labor  of  our  hands,  as  corn, 
cattle,  tobacco,  &c.  to  make  payment  in,  which  they  will 
have  at  their  own  rates,  or  else  not  deal  with  us ;  whereby 
though  they  gain  extraordinarily  by  us,  yet,  for  the  safe- 
guard of  their  religion,  they  m.ay  seem  to  neglect  themselves 
in  that  respect ;  for  lulicd  will  not  men  do  for  tlicir  God  ? 
Sir,  this  is  our  earnest  and  pressing  request  unto  you  in 
this  matter,  that  as  you  may  perceive  by  our  answer  unto 
the  united  colonies,  we  fly  as  our  refuge  in  all  civil  respects 
to  his  Highness  and  honorable  Council,  as  not  being  sub- 
ject to  any  other  in  matters  of  our  civil  state,  so  may  it 
please  you  to  have  an  eye  and  ear  open,  in  case  our  ad- 
versaries should  speak,  to  undermine  us  in  our  privileges 
granted  unto  us,  and  plead  our  cause  in  such  sort,  as  that 
we  may  not  be  compelled  to  exercise  any  civil  power  over 
men's  consciences,  so  long  as  human  orders  in  point  of 
civility  are  not  corrupted  and  violated,  which  our  neighbors 
about  us  do  frequently  practise,  whereof  many  of  us  have 
26 


*29S  MEMOIR    or 

absolute  experience,  and  judge  it  to  be  no  less  than  a  point 

of  ABSOLUTE  CRUELTY. 

"JOHN  SANFORD, 

^ty.  Clerk  of  Assembly y 

The  concluding  sentences  of  this  letter  are  worthy  of 
special  note,  as  showing,  that  the  rulers  of  Rhode-Island 
carefully  distinguished  between  the  rights  of  conscience 
and  the  duty  of  obedience  to  the  laws  which  guard  the 
civil  peace.  They  permitted  no  disorderly  license,  and  if 
any  persons  had  been  guilty,  in  Rhode-Island,  of  the  acts 
which  some  individuals,  calling  themselves  Quakers,  prac- 
tised in  Massachusetts,  they  would  have  been  punished. 
Mr.  Williams,  in  his  subsequent  controversy  wdth  George 
Fox,  expressed  his  approbation  of  the  punishment  of  certain 
females  in  Massachusetts,  for  their  shameless  conduct,  af- 
firming it  to  be  a  perversion  of  terms  to  call  the  punishment 
of  such  actions,  persecution. 

We  must  now  return  to  Mr.  Williams.  He  held  the 
office  of  President  two  years.  On  the  1st  of  February, 
1657-8,  he  issued  a  warrant  against  Mr.  William  Harris, 
for  the  alleged  crime  of  opposing  the  Protector's  govern- 
ment. The  warrant  ordered  his  arrest  and  imprisonment, 
for  the  purpose  of  sending  him  to  England,  in  accordance, 
probably,  with  the  act  of  June,  1655.  How  far  this  strong 
measure  was  deserved  by  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Harris,  we 
cannot  now  determine.*  It  has  been  inferred  that  it  was 
not  sustained  by  public  opinion,  because,  at  the  next  elec- 
tion, Mr.  Williams  was  superseded,  as  President,  by  Mr. 
Benedict  Arnold.  It  is  not  improbable,  that  he  was  urged 
too  far,  by  zeal  to  uphold  the  charter  and  the  Protector's 
authority,  and  perhaps  by  personal  hostility  towards  Mr. 
Harris,  between  whom  and  himself  there  was,  for  many 


"^  In  his  *'  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,"  (p.  20.)  Mr. 
Williams  says  of  Mr.  Harris,  his  ''  facts  and  courses  others  (of  no 
small  authority  and  prudence  among  us,  with  whom  I  advised)  saw 
to  be  desperate  high  treason  against  the  laws  of  our  mother  England, 
and  of  the  colony  also."  He  then  inquires,  "  was  it  my  fury  (as  you 
call  it)  or  was  it  not  honesty  and  duty  to  God  and  the  colony,  and 
the  higher  powers  then  in  England,  to  act  faithfully  and  impartially 
in  the  place  wherein  I  then  stood  sentinel?  " 


ROGER       W  I  I ,  L  I  A  IVI  S .  299 

years,  a  very  acrimonious  feud.*  There  is,  however,  no 
very  conclusive  evidence,  that  Mr.  Williams'  conduct,  in 
this  case,  was  generally  disapproved.  He  occupied  a  seat 
in  the  General  Assembly,  at  intervals,  for  several  years,  both 
as  an  assistant,  and  as  a  representative  from  Providence. 
He  was  often  chosen  on  important  committees,  and  he 
continued,  till  his  death,  to  serve  the  public,  in  various 
ways,  with  ability  and  patriotic  zeal.t 

*  The  origin  of  this  unhappy  quarrel  is  unknown.  There  were, 
probabl}',  fauhs  on  both  sides.  They  both  used  very  angry  and  un- 
justifiable language  towards  each  other.  It  appears  that  Mr.  Wil- 
liams so  disliked  Mr.  Harris,  that  he  would  not  write  his  name  at 
length,  but  abbreviated  it  thus,  '•  W.  Har :"  This  mode  of  writing 
it  is  seen  in  the  fac  simile  prefixed  to  this  volume.  It  seems  evident, 
that  Mr.  Harris  had,  for  some  cause,  a  remarkable  aptitude  to  get 
into  difficulties.  A  letter  of  the  town  of  Providence,  to  the  ••'  Honored 
Governor  and  Council  at  Newport  on  R.hode-Island,"  dated  August 
31,  1663,  and  signed  •'  Shadrach  Manton,  town  clerk,"  accuses  him 
of  turbulent  conduct.  In  1667,  there  was  a  great  disturbance  at. 
Providence,  excited,  as  it  appears,  by  him.  Two  town  meetings 
v/ere  held,  and  two  sets  of  deputies  chosen  to  the  General  Assembly, 
among  whom  was  Mr.  Harris.  He  was,  however,  expelled  from  !:ho 
General  Assembly,  and  fined  fifty  pounds,  which  fine  was  remitted 
the  next  year. — Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  457.  We  may  hope,  that  Mr. 
Harris,  tlaough  he  doubtless  had  faults,  was  less  culpable,  than  his 
contemporaries  thought  him.  It  Vv^as  an  unquiet  time,  and  fev/  public 
men  escaped  censure. 

t  In  the  records  of  the  town  of  Providence,  is  the  following  act: 
'•'  June  2,  1657.  Ordered,  that  Mr.  Roger  Williams  be  accommodat- 
ed with  two  acres  and  a  half  of  land  amongst  the  rest  of  the  neigh- 
bors, at  the  further  Bailey's  Cove,  he  laying  down  land  equivalent 
to  it.  in  the  judgment  of  the  town  deputies." 


300  M  E  ?.I  O  I  Pv       OF 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

Death  of  Cromwell — his  character — Richard  Cromwell  succeeds — 
R-estoration  of  Charles  II. — Act  of  Uniformity,  and  ejection  of  the 
Non-conformists — Affairs  in  Rhode-Island — Indian  deed — letters 
to  Mr.  Winthrop. 

The  Protector  Cromwell  died  in  September,  165S.  This 
wonderful  man  raised  himself,  from  a  private  station,  to  the 
supreme  power,  and  fulfilled  his  high  functions  with  an 
ability  and  energy,  which  few  occupants  of  a  throne  have 
ever  displayed.  He  has  shared  the  usual  fate  of  those  men, 
whose  conduct  and  principles  have  placed  them  apart  from 
the  mass  of  mankind.  No  other  man  was  ever  in  a 
position,  which  exposed  him  to  the  hatred  and  misrepre- 
sentation of  so  many  parties.  The  royalists  heaped  on 
him  unmeasured  obloquy  as  a  usurper.  The  High  Church 
party  denounced  him  as  a  foe  to  the  hierarchy.  The  Pres- 
byterians disliked  and  opposed  him,  as  a  friend  of  toleration. 
The  ultra-rep  iblicans  reproached  him  for  his  ambition, 
because  ho  did  not  think  England,  in  her  existing  condi- 
tion, to  be  capable  of  a  free  republican  government,  and 
therefore  retained  in  his  hands  the  power  which  he  believed 
to  be  indispensable  to  the  peace  of  the  state.  The  irreli- 
gious, of  all  parties,  scoffed  at  him  as  a  hypocrite  and  a 
fanatic,  though  the  charge  is  somewhat  inconsistent  with 
itself.* 

That  Cromvvell  had  faults,  may  be  freely  acknowledged, 


*  Pope  (Essay  on  Man,  Ep.  iv.  1.  284,)  has  aided  in  confirming  the 
prejudice  against  Cromv/ell,  by  his  famous  line  : 

'■•'  See  Cromwell  damned  to  everlasting  fame." 
Pope  sometimes  sacrificed  truth  to  a  brilliant  couplet.     The  two  lines 
which  immediately  precede  the  one  just  quoted  are  a  specimen  : 
"  If  parts  allure  thee,  think  how  Bacon  shined, 
^'  The  v/isost,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind." 
Public  opinion  now  does  not  sustain  the  poet,  in  sticr;natizing  the  great 
Bacon  as  tlie  '-meanest  of  nsankind,"  but  views  liim  as  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning.      We   may  learn  from   these  examples,  how 
great  is  the  responsibleness  of  popular  authors.     By  a  single  line  they 
may  perpetuate  cahimny.     They  may  poison  the  wells  of  knowledge. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  301 

by  his  warmest  friends.  That  his  course  was  always  wise 
and  justifiable,  cannot  be  maintained  ;  but  it  may  be  doubt- 
ed, whether,  if  the  circumstances  of  that  stormy  and  criti- 
cal period  in  which  he  lived  were  fairly  weighed,  and  his 
character  and  conduct  were  sifted,  with  a  candid  spirit,  it 
would  not  be  found,  that  Cromwell  deserves  more  of  the 
applause  of  the  friends  of  liberty  and  religion,  than  of  their 
censures.  It  is  certain,  that  his  accusers  yield  to  him  the 
praise  of  qualities,  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the 
crimes  that  they  impute  to  him. 

It  is  surprising  to  hear,  from  American  writers,  reproaches 
against  Cromwell  as  a  "  usurper."*  This  language  is  not 
strange  from  the  lips  of  a  royalist,  or  a  High  Church  parti- 
san, in  England  ;  but  from  an  American,  it  is  inconsistent, 
and  unworthy  of  his  position  as  a  citizen  of  a  great  and 
free  country,  where  public  opinion  ought  to  be  decisively 
and  steadily  in  favor  of  republican  principles,  and  ought  thus 
to  form  an  august  tribunal,  whose  verdict  should  be  felt  and 
respected  throughout  the  earth. 

An  American,  surely,  can  feel  no  respect  for  hereditary 
titles.  In  his  view,  Cromwell  would  have  had  a  clear  right  to 
the  throne,  if  the  people  had  chosen  to  give  him  the 
crow^n  ;  and  there  is  quite  as  much  evidence,  that  the 
great  body  of  the  people  of  England  were  satisfied  with 
the  government  of  Cromwell,  as  that  they  were  content 
with  that  of  Charles  II.  If  by  usurpation  is  meant  a  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  it  may  be  replied,  that  the  Consti- 
tution was  already  broken.  The  King  had  trampled  on  it, 
and  the  Long  Parliament  had  governed  the  kingdom  for 
years  with  an  entire  disregard  of  the  Constitution.  The 
country  was  in  a  state  of  anarchy,  and  it  was  a  blessing  to 
England  that  Cromwell  seized  the  reins,  and  controlled 
the  fierce  parties  who  convulsed  the  nation.  Napoleon, 
though  his  subsequent  course  was  unjustifiable,  did  a 
good  service  to  France,  when  he  overthrew  the   detestable 


*  Examples  might  be  cited,  of  language  like  this,  in  American 
authors.  They  show  the  effect  of  a  discreditable  deference  to  foreign 
writers.  But  all  American  authors  are  not  disposed  to  echo  ihe  in- 
fidel and  tory  opinions  of  England.  Dr.  Stiles,  in  his  History  of  the 
Judges,  defended  Cromv/ell ;  and  a  writer  in  the  Christian  Spectator, 
for  September,  1629,  has  vindicated  the  character  of  the  Protector, 
with  ability  and  eloquence. 

26* 


*30*2  MEMOIR      OF 

demagogues  who  had  dehiged  her  with  blood.  If  our  peer- 
less Washington  had  found  this  country,  in  1784,  in  the 
condition  in  which  England  was  in  1653,  and  France  in 
1800,  it  would  have  been  his  duty,  as  a  patriot  and  a  phi- 
lanthropist, to  employ  the  power  at  his  control  for  the  pre- 
servation of  order,  and  the  restoration  of  public  happiness. 

It  is  certain,  that  the  great  ends  of  government, — peace 
and  prosperity  Li  home  and  respect  abroad, — were  enjoyed 
under  Cromwell's  sway,  to  a  far  higher  degree  than  they 
were  under  most  of  the  British  monarchs,  preceding  the 
revolution.  Even  Hume,  who  was  an  infidel  and  a  tory, 
and  of  course  hated  Cromwell,  acknowledges,  that  the  dis- 
tracted state  of  England,  and  the  mutual  rancor  of  its 
various  factions,  rendered  an  energetic  government  indis- 
pensable, and  v.'ould  have  furnished  a  reasonable  excuse 
for  what  he  calls  the  "  temporary  usurpation"  of  Cromwell, 
if  the  Protector  had  leen  guilty  of  no  other  crime.*  The 
excellent  Baxter,  who  carried  liir3  loyalty  to  the  preposter- 
ous length  of  opposing  Cromv/ell,  under  v;hom  he  enjoyed 
perfect  toleration,  and  striving  to  restore  the  "legitimate" 
King,  with  the  almost  certain  prospect  of  being  persecuted 
and  silenced,  confesses,  that  religion  flourished,  under  the 
Protector,  in  a  degree  before  unknown.  "  I  do  not  be- 
lieve," he  says,t  "that  ever  England  had  so  able  and  faith- 
ful a  ministry  since  it  was  a  nation,  as  it  hath  at  this  day  ; 
and  I  fear,  that  fcvv'  nations  on  earth,  if  any,  have  the  like. 
Sure  I  am,  the  change  is  so  great,  within  these  twelve 
years,  that  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  joys  that  ever  I  had  in 
the  world  to  behold  it  O  how  many  congregations  arc 
now  plainly  and  frequently  taught,  that  lived  then  in  great 
obscurity.  How  many  able,  faithful  men  are  there  now 
in  a  county,  in  comparison  of  what  were  then."  And  yet 
Baxter  labored  and  prayed  for  the  restoration  of  Charles, 
under  whom  Baxter  himself  and  two  thousand  more  of 
these  faithful  ministers  were  speedily  silenced. 

Cromwell  has  been  accused  of  hypocrisy,  but  this  charge, 
especially  when  made  by  such  men  as  Hume,  is  unworthy 
of  credit.  Baxter,  who  v/as  a  good  judge  of  piety,  does  not 
accuse  Cromwell  of  hypocrisy,  but  acknowledges  that  he 
w^as  a  pious  man,  though  misled  by  ambition.     "  Both  piety 

*  History  of  England,  chapter  Ixi. 

t  "Works,  Orme's  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  153. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  803 

and  ambition,"  he  says,  "  concurred  in  countenancing  all 
whom  he  thought  godly,  of  what  sect  soever.  Piety  plead- 
ed for  them  as  godly,  and  charity  as  men, -and  ambition 
secretly  told  him  what  use  he  might  make  of  them.  He 
meant  well  in  all  this  at  the  beginning,  and  thought  he  did 
all  for  the  safety  of  the  godly,  and  the  public  good,  but  not 
without  an  eye  to  himself"*  As  to  his  ambition,  he  pro- 
bably had  a  sufficient  share  of  it ;  but  he  refused  the  crown 
when  it  was  urged  on  him,  with  many  plausible  arguments, 
by  Parliament,  and  when,  as  Hum.e  intimates,  a  large  part 
of  the  nation  would  have  acquiesced.  His  personal  and 
domestic  habits  are  acknowledged,  by  all  parties,  to  have 
been  pure  and  amiable.  His  court  was  perhaps  the  most 
moral  and  decorous,  that  England  has  ever  seen. 

The  Protector  was  a  friend  of  toleration,  and  this  single 
trait  in  his  character  is  sufficient  to  entitle  his  memory  to 
respect.  He  was  not  entirely  consistent,  it  is  true,  but  no 
public  man,  at  that  day,  except  Roger  Williams,  was  so. 
-Cromvi'ell  was  surrounded  v/ith  difficulties ;  and  the  "  In- 
strument of  Governm.ent,"  under  which  he  held  the  Protec- 
torship, excluded  Episcopalians  and  Catholics  from  the  en- 
joyment of  that  religious  liberty  which  it  granted  to  all 
others. f  But  the  spirit  of  the  Protector  was  more  tolerant 
than  the  laws,  and  he  often  connived  at  the  meetings  of  the 
Episcopalians.  A  man,  who,  at  that  time,  and  in  his  post, 
could  act,  so  far  as  he  did,  on  the  principle  of  an  equitable 
toleration  of  all  religious  opinions,  could  not  have  been  either 
a  fanatic  or  a  despot.;!; 


*  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  149.  t  Neal.  vol.  iv.  p.  10]. 

+  The  Protector's  exertions  to  relieve  and  protect  the  unhappy 
Waldenses.  v/ho  were  at  that  time  suffering  a  merciless  persecu- 
tion, claim  for  him  the  gratitude  of  every  friend  of  religion  ar^d  lib- 
erty. He  appointed  a  day  of  national  humiliation  and  prayer  through- 
out all  England  and  Wales,  and  ordered  that  a  collection  should  be 
made  in  all  the  houses  of  worship,  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers.  He 
himself  headed  a  subscription,  with  the  liberal  donation  of  two  thous- 
and pounds,  and  in  a  short  time  the  large  sum  of  nearly  forty  thous- 
and pounds  v/as  raised  and  transmitted.  Not  contented  with  this 
measure,  he  sent  letters  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  the  inhuman  perse- 
cutor, and  to  several  of  the  princes  of  Europe,  for  the  purpose  of 
procuring  deliverance  for  the  miserable  remnants  of  the  Waldenses. 
The  potent  voice  of  the  formidable  Protector,  \yhich  none  of  the 
monarchs  "^f  that  day  ventured  to  despise,  uttered,  as  it  was,  by  the 


304  MEMOIR    or 

Roger  Williams  was  a  friend  of  Cromwell.  It  has  been 
supposed,  that  he  was  allied  to  him  by  birth.  He  was  cer- 
tainly drawn  to  him  by  a  communion  of  spirit,  on  the  sub- 
of  religious  liberty.  In  his  letters,  he  repeatedly  alludes 
to  familiar  conversations  with  Cromwell.  The  friendship 
of  Milton  and  Roger  Williams  may  be  viewed  as  an  hon- 
orable testimony  to  the  character  of  the  Protector.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe,  that  these  men  would  have  yielded  their 
confidence  and  esteem  to  a  hypocrite,  either  in  religion  or 
in  politics.  It  is  not  more  easy  to  believe,  that  such  a  man 
as  Cromwell  has  been  described,  would  have  admitted  men 
so  sagacious  and  upright  as  Milton  and  Williams,  to  a  close 
scrutiny  of  his  actions,  or  that  by  all  the  cunning  which 
has  been  ascribed  to  him  he  could  have  deceived  them. 

These  three  men,  in  fact,  resembled  each  other,  in  their 
character,  in  their  opinions,  and  in  the  treatment  which 
they  received.  Each  was  misunderstood ;  each  has  suf- 
fered obloquy,  and  each  is  receiving,  from  the  calm  and 
enlightened  judgment  of  the  present  age,  that  just  sentence, 
which,  sooner  or  later,  will  reward  him,  who  aims  to  ad- 
vance the  happiness  of  men,  and  who  perseveres,  through 
evil  and  good  report,  in  upholding  the  p>ersecuted  cause  of 
truth  and  freedom.* 

Cromwell  was  quietly  succeeded,  as  Protector,  by  his 
son  Richard,  a  proof,  that  the  nation  were  not  very  much 


Eowerful  pen  of  Milton,  the  Latin  Secretary,  had  some  effect,  though 
;ss  than  he  hoped,  to  soften  the  rage  of  bigotry  and  persecution. 
The  following  sonnet  was  written  by  Milton  on  this  occasion : 

"  On  the  late  Massacre  in  Piedmont. 

Avenge,  0  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 

Lie  scatter'd  on  the  Alpine  mountains,  cold  ; 

E'en  them,  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worship'd  stocks  and  stones, 
Forget  not ;  in  thy  book  record  their  groans. 

Who   were  thy  sheep,  and  iu  their  ancient  fold 

Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  roll'd 

Mother  and  infaiit  down  the  rocks.     Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 

To  Heaven.     Their  martyr'd  blood  and  ashes  sow 

O'er  all  th'  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 
The  triple  tyrant ;  that  from  these  may  grow 

A  hundred  fold,  who,  having  learneB  thy  way. 

Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe." 

*  Judging  from  the  rapid  progress  of  free  principles  in  England, 


R  O  <;  E  R      W  I  I.  L  I  A  M  S.  305 

dissatisfied  witli  Cromwell's  sway.  But  Richard  possessed 
neither  the  talents,  nor  the  ambition  of  his  father.*  The 
aspiring  and  factions  men  whom  Oliver  held  in  check,  soon 
forced  his  son  to  retire  from  his  burthensome  and  difficult 
office.  A  stormy  period  succeeded,  during  which  the 
rival  parties  struggled  for  victory.  At  length,  General 
Monk,  obtaining  the  command  of  a  poAverful  army,  restored 
the  King,  Charles  II.  who  entered  London  in  triumph.  May 
29 J  1660.  The  nation  received  him  with  apparent  joy, 
being  weary  of  the  disorders  which  preceded  and  followed 
the  energetic  governm.ent  of  Cromwell.  The  royalists, 
among  whom  were  the  Episcopalians,  welcomed  the  King 
with  delight.  The  Presbyterians,  who  had  disliked  Crom- 
well, were  also  zealous  in  restoring  Charles,  with  the  ex- 
pectation that  their  system  would  be  continued  as  the  na- 
tional religion.  They  were  so  eager  to  merit  the  gratitude 
of  the  King,  that  they  exacted  of  him  no  conditions,  but 
were  satisfied  with  the  assurance,^  that  he  w^ould  grant 
liberty  to  all  tender  consciences ;  a  promise,  which  he  after 

it  would  not  be  surprising  if  Cromwell  should,  ere  long,  be  recognis- 
ed as  one  of  the  great  leaders  in  the  struggle  for  freedom.  Mr. 
Ivirney,  in  his  life  of  Milton,  (p.  131,)  says  of  Cromwell,"  for  whose 
statue  I  venture  to  bespeak  a  niche  among  the  illustrious  dead  in 
Westminster  Abbey;  not  doubting,  from  recent  events,  but  the  time 
will  come,  when  the  governors  of  the  nation  will  be  so  sensible  of 
the  obligations  of  Britain  to  that  illustrious  ruler  and  his  noble  com- 
patriots, as  maugre  the  mean  power  of  ignorance  and  prejudice,  will 
decree  him  a  monumental  inscription  in  the  sepulchres  of  our  kings." 

*  The  colony  of  Rhode-Island  adopted  an  address  to  Richard 
Cromwell,  of  which  the  following  is  an  extract.  The  address  was 
never  presented  : 

'•  May  it  please  your  Highness  to  know,  that  this  poor  colony  of 
Providence  Plantations,  mostly  consists  of  a  birth  and  breeding  of  the 
Providence  of  the  Most  High,  vv^e  being  an  outcast  people,  formerly 
from  our  mother  nation,  in  the  bishops'  days,  and  since  from  the 
New-English  over- zealous  colonies  ;  our  whole  frame  being  like  unto 
the  present  frame  and  constitution  of  our  dearest  mother  England  ; 
bearing  with  the  several  judgments  and  consciences  each  of  other 
in  all  the  towns  of  our  colony,  which  our  neighbor  colonies  do  not, 
which  is  the  only  cause  of  their  gicat  offence  against  us.  Sir,  we 
dare  not  interrupt  your  high  affairs  with  the  particulars  of  our  wilder- 
ness condition,  only  beg  your  eye  of  favor  to  be  cast  upon  our  faith- 
ful Agent,  Mr.  John  Clarke,  and  unto  what  humble  addresses  he 
shall  at  any  time  present  your  Highness  with  in  our  behalf."' — Back- 
us, vol.  i.  pp,  310-17,        '     .     , 


306  M  E  M  O  I  R      OF 

wards  found  it  very  easy  to  violate,  by  insisting,  that 
all  consciences  which  did  not  agree  with  his  views,  were 
not  tender,  but  criminally  obstinate.  The  efforts  of  the 
Presbyterians  to  obtain  a  compromise  with  the  Episco- 
palians, by  which  they  might  be  comprehended  in  the 
Established  Church,  failed.*  The  bishops  would  not 
consent  to  any  alterations  of  the  liturgy.  The  Presbyte- 
rians would  not  listen  to  the  King's  proposition  of  tolera- 
tion to  other  denominations,  by  which  he  meant  to  favor 
the  Papists,  but  which  the  Presbyterians  rejected,  more 
from  a  dread  of  Popery,  we  may  hope,  than  from  their  gen- 
eral aversion  to  toleration.  The  Act  of  Uniformity  was 
passed,  and  took  effect,  August  24,  1862.  Two  thousand 
of  the  best  ministers  in  England  were  ejected  from  their 
livings,  because  they  could  not  submit  to  the  rigorous  re- 
quirements of  the  act.  Dreadful  distress  to  them  and  to 
their  families  was  the  natural  consequence.  The  interests 
of  religion  suffered  incalculable  injury,  by  the  loss  of  these 
ministers,  and  by  the  character  of  many  of  their  successors. 

King  Charles  II.  was  proclaimed  in  Rhode-Island,  Oc- 
tober 19,  1660.  A  new  conmiission  was  sent  to  Mr. 
Clarke,  and  he  continued  his  exertions  to  procure  a  new 
charter  for  the  colony.  Various  sums  of  money  were  voted, 
at  different  times,  to  be  sent  to  Mr.  Clarke. t 

At  Providence,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  spirit  among 
some  of  the  inhabitants,  which  disturbed  the  peace  of  Mr. 
Williams.  Whether  they  were  envious  of  his  influence, 
or  impatient  under  the  restraints  which  he  steadily  advo- 


*  An  interesting  account  of  the  fruitless  endeavors  of  the  Presby- 
terians to  effect  this  object,  is  given  in  Orme's  Life  of  Baxter,  chap- 
ter vii. 

t  August  23,  1659,  a  rate  of  fifty  pounds  was  voted  for  his  use,  of 
which  Newport  was  to  pay  twenty,  Providence  eleven,  Portsmouth 
ten,  and  Warwick  nine.  May  21 ,  1661,  two  hundred  pounds  sterling 
were  voted,  of  which  Newport  v/as  to  pay  eighty-five,  Providence 
forty,  Portsmouth  forty,  and  Warwick  thirty-five.  Subsequent  ap- 
propriations, to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  and  six  pounds,  are 
found  on  the  records.  The  relative  size  of  the  towns  may  be  inferred 
from  the  above  apportionment.  Newport  v/as  more  than  twice  as 
large  as  Providence.  A  record  of  the  names  of  the  freemen  in  the  sev- 
eral towns,  in  1655,  states  the  numbers  thus  :  Newport,  eiffhty-three  ; 
Portsmouth, fifly-t wo  ;  Providence,  forly-two;  Warv%-ick.  tliirty-eight, 
— total,  two  hundred  and  fifteen 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  307 

e-ated,  with  the  whole  weight  of  his  authority,  does  not  now 
appear.  But  it  is  certain,  that  parties  were  formed,  which, 
for  many  years,  greatly  interrupted  the  tranquillity  of  the 
town  ;  and  it  was  thought  necessary,  in  1669,  to  send  a 
Committee  of  the  General  Assembly,  to  settle  the  difficulties. 
The  boundaries  of  the  town  were  a  fruitful  cause  of  con- 
tention, and  involved  the  inhabitants  in  disputes,  which 
were  not  adjusted  till  long  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Williams 
and  of  most  of  his  contemporaries.  He  complains,  in  a  letter, 
dated  July,  1669,  that  they  had  **  four  sorts  of  bounds  at 
least."  He  says  :  "  some  (that  never  did  this  town  nor  col- 
ony good,  and  it  is  feared  never  will)  cried  out,  when  Roger 
Williams  had  laid  himself  down  as  a  stone  in  the  dust  for 
after  comers  to  step  on  in  town  and  colony,  WTio  is  Roger 
Williams  ?  We  know^  the  Indians  and  the  sachems  as 
well  as  he.  We  will  trust  Roger  Williams  no  longer.  We 
will  have  our  bounds  confirmed  us  under  the  sachems' 
hands  before  us."* 

In  August,  1659,  the  following  deed  was  procured  from 
the  Narraganset  sachems : 

"  Deed  of  Scattape  and  Quoquagunewett,  son  of  Mex- 
ham,  son  of  Qunnouone,  called  by  the  English  Canonicus, 
uncle  to  Miantinomo,  who  made  a  league  of  peace  with 
the  English  in  the  Massachusetts,  for  all  the  Indians  in 
these  parts,  in  the  time  of  the  Pequod  war  with  the  Eng- 
lish, this  our  grandfather  and  cousin,  these  sachems,  grant- 
ed to  Roger  Williams,  agent  for  the  men  of  Providence  and 
the  men  of  Pawtuxet,  a  tract  of  land,  reaching  from  Paw- 
tucket  river  to  Pawtuxet  river.  All  the  lands  between  the 
streams  of  those  rivers,  and  up  these  streams  without  lim- 
its, for  their  use  of  cattle,  did  they  grant  to  the  men  afore- 
said, the  men  of  Providence  and  the  men  of  Pawtuxet  ; — 
to  whom  we  establish  the  lands  aforesaid,  up  the  streams 
of  those  rivers,  and  confirm,  without  limit,  or  as  far  as  the 
men  abovesaid,  of  Providence  and  of  Pawtuxet,  shall  judge 
convenient  for  their  use  of  cattle,  as  feeding,  ploughing, 
planting  all  manner  of  plantations  whatsoever  ;  we  say,  all 
the  lands,  according  to  the  limits  abovesaid,  we  establish 
and  confirm  to  the  men  of  Providence    and  the   men   of 

'^  R.  I.  Lit.  Rep.  for  March,  1815,  p.  638. 


308  MEMOIR     OF 

Pawtuxet,  according  to  their  joint  agreement,  in  the  iiiost 
absolute  tenure  of  fee  simple,  to  them,  their  heirs  and  as- 
signs forever.  And  hereby  bind  ourselves,  our  heirs  and 
assigns,  not  to  molest  or  trouble  the  men  abovesaid,  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  the  land  abovesaid.  Nevertheless,  it 
shall  not  be  lawful  for  the  men  abovesaid  to  remove  the 
Indians  that  are  up  in  the  country,  from  their  fields,  with- 
out the  Indians'  content  and  consent ;  nor  sh-ill  it  be  law- 
ful for  any  of  those  Indians  to  sell  any  of  the  lands  above- 
said  to  any,  only  it  shall  be  lawful  for  them  to  take  of  the 
men  of  Providence  and  the  inea,  of  Pawtuxel^  according 
to  their  joint  agreements,  satisfaction  for  their  removing. 
And,  as  we  have  established  to  the  men  abovesaid  the  land 
and  deed  granted  by  our  grandfather  and  cousin,  so  do  we 
now,  also,  confirm  the  grant  of  confirmation  by  our  cousin, 
Cursackquanth,  Caufanequanutte,  and  Kenerselath- 

"  Dated  this  first  day  of  December,  IQ59. 

''  The  mark  of  {a  tomahawk)  SCUTTAPE, 
'*  The  mark  of  {bow  and  arrow)  aUOClUAGUNEWETT. 

"  Signed  and  delivered,  in  presence  of 

Nautemoreaw,  —  his  mark, 

Richard  Smith, 

Richard  Sriith,  Jr. 

James  Smith, 

William  Dyre. 

"  Richard  Smith,  and  Richard  Smith,  jun.  swore,  that 
this  deed  was  explained  before  it  v/as  signed."  April  28, 
1660,  Acaquaomitt,  son  of  duoquagunewett,  confirmed 
the  preceding  deed. 

This  deed  was,  it  appears,  written  by  Mr.  William  Har- 
ris. This  fact  accounts  for  its  phraseology.  It  was  assert- 
ed by  Mr.  Williams  and  others,  that  the  sachems  did 
not  understand  its  full  import,  when  they  signed  it. 
It  was  procured  on  the  ground,  that  Mr.  Williams' 
deed  from  the  sachems  conveyed  a  life  estate  only  to  him, 
and  consequently  his  deed  to  the  purchasers  could  convey 
no  other  title.  This  deed,  also,  greatly  extended  the  orig- 
inal bounds,  and  thus  gratified  those  who  had  contended, 
that  the  phrase  "  up  streams  without  limits,"  in  the 
sachems'  deed  to  Mr.  Williams,  gave  u  title  to  the  lands 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  309 

lying  along  the  rivers  Pawtuxet  and  Pawtucket,  up  to 
their  sources.  This  construction  was  always  resisted  by 
Roger  Williams,  as  false,  and  as  injurious  to  the  natives. 
The  new  deed  was  disapproved  by  himself  and  others.* 
It  appears  to  have  been  procured  in  no  friendly  spirit  to- 
wards himself.  It  implied  that  he  had  acted  improperly, 
in  taking  the  deed  in  his  own  name,  and  it  calls  him  the 
"  agent  of  the  men  of  Providence  and  the  men  of  Pawtux- 
et." But  it  has,  we  trust,  been  satisfactorily  shown,  in 
preceding  pages,  that  Mr.  Williams  was  the  rightful  pro- 
prietor of  the  original  grant,  and  was  under  no  obligation 
to  divide  the  land  among  his  fellow-colonists. 

The  following  letters  to  Mr.  Winthrop,  touch  on  seve- 
ral interesting  topics  : 

"  To  my  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  Gov- 
ernor, at  Hartford,  on  Connecticut. 

''  Providence,  6,  12,  59-60. 

"  Sir, 

"  Loving  respects  to  yourself  and  Mrs.  Winthrop,  &lc. 

Your  loving  lines  in  this  cold,   dead  season,  were  as  a  cup 

of  your  Connecticut   cider,    which  we    are  glad  to  hear 

abounds  with  you,  or  of  that  western  metheglin,  which  you 

*  A  document  exists,  purporting  to  be  an  act  of  the  town,  with  a 
preface,  signed  by  Gregory  Dexter,  and  entitled  "  An  instrument,  or 
sovereign  plaster,  to  heal  the  manifold  sores  in  this  town  or  plantation 
of  Providence,  which  do  arise  about  lands."  This  document  says  : 
'•  1st.  That  act,  to  divide  to  the  men  of  Pawtuxet  twenty  miles,  is 
hereby  declared  against  as  unjust  and  unreasonable,  not  being  health- 
ful, but  hurtful.  2.  "Whereas  great  and  manifold  troubles  have  be- 
fallen both  ourselves  and  the  whole  colonj,  by  reason  of  that  phrase, 
'•  up  streams  without  limits,  we  migbt  Iiave  for  the  use  of  our  cattle," 
for  preventing  future  contention,  we  declare  that  our  bounds  are  hm- 
ited  in  our  town  evidences,  and  by  us  stated,  about  twenty  years 
since,  and  known  to  be  the  river  and  fields  of  Pawtucket,  Sugar 
Loaf  Hill,  Bewett's  Brow,  Observation  Rock,  Absolute  Swamp,  Ox- 
ford and  Hipe's  Rook.  ****  No  other  privilege,  by  virtue  of  the  said 
phrase,  to  be  challenged  by  this  town,  viz.  that  if  the  cattle  went 
beyond  the  bounds  prefixed  in  the  said  deed  granted  to  him,  [Mr. 
Williams]  then  the  owners  of  the  cattle  should  be  no  trespassers,  the 
cattle  going  so  far  in  one  day  to  feed  as  they  might  come  home  at 
night.  3.  And  whereas  some  of  us  have  desired  of  the  colony  leave 
to  purchase  for  this  town  some  enlargement,  which  was  granted,  and 
by  the  great  diligence  of  our  said  neighbor,  Williams,  with  the  na- 
tives, more  land  isbouffht.  adjoininsr  your  said  bounds,"  &c. 
^7     "    ' 


310  MEMOIR     OF 

and  I  have  drunk  at  Bristol  together,  &c.  Indeed,  it  in 
the  wonderful  power  and  goodness  of  God,  that  we  are 
preserved  in  our  dispersions  among  these  wild,  barbarous 
wretches.  I  hear  not  of  their  excursions  this  winter,  and 
should  rejoice  if,  as  you  hint,  Uncas  and  his  brother  were 
removed  to  Long-Island,  or  any  where,  or  else,  as  I  have 
sometimes  motioned,  a  truce  for  some  good  term  of  years 
might  be  obtained  amongst  them.  But  how  should  we  ex- 
pect that  the  streams  of  blood  should  stop  among  the  dregs 
of  mankind,  when  the  bloody  issues  flow  so  fresh  and  fear- 
fully among  the  finest  and  most  refined  sons  of  men  and 
sons  of  God.  We  have  not  only  heard  of  the  four  north- 
ern nations,  Dania,  Swedia,  Anglia,  and  Belgium,  all  Pro- 
testants, (heretics  and  dogs,  with  the  Pope,  &c.)  last  year 
tearing  and  devouring  one  another,  in  the  narrow  straits 
and  eminent  high  passages  and  turns  of  the  sea  and 
world  ;  but  we  also  have  a  sound  of  the  Presbyterians' 
rage  new  burst  out  into  flames  of  war  from  Scotland,  and 
the  independent  and  sectarian  army  provoked  again  to  new 
appeals  to  God,  and  engagements  against  them.  Thus, 
while  this  last  Pope  hath  plied  with  sails  and  oars,  and 
brought  all  his  popish  sons  to  peace,  except  Portugal,  and 
brought  in  his  grand  engineers,  the  Jesuits,  again  to  Ven- 
ice, after  their  long  just  banishment,  we  Protestants 
are  wofully  disposed  to  row  backward,  and  bring  our  sails 
aback-stays,  and  provoke  the  holy,  jealous  Lord,  who  is  a 
consuming  fire,  to  kindle  again  those  fires  from  Rome  and 
hell,  which  formerly  consumed  (in  Protestant  countries) 
so  many  preciovss  servants  of  God.  The  late  renowned 
Oliver  confessed  to  me,  in  close  discourse  about  the  Protes- 
tants' affairs,  &c.  that  he  yet  feared  great  persecutions  to 
the  Protestants  from  the  Ronianists,  before  the  downfall  of 
the  Papacy.  The  histories  of  our  fathers  before  us,  tell  us 
what  huge  bowls  of  the  blood  of  the  saints  that  great  whore 
hath  been  drunk  with,  in  (now)  Protestant  dominions. 
Sure  her  judgment  will  ring  through  the  world,  and  it  is 
hoped  it  is  not  far  from  the  door.  Sir,  you  were,  not  long 
since,  the  son  of  two  noble  fathers,  Mr.  John  Winthrop 
and  Mr.  H.  Peters.  It  is  said  they  are  both  extinguished. 
Surely,  I  did  ever,  from  my  soul,  honor  and  love  them 
even  when  their  judgments  led  them  to  afflict  me.  Ye 
the  Father  of  Spirits  spares   us  breath,  and  I  rejoice,  Sir 


11  O  G  E  R     W  J  L  L  I  A  M  S.  311 

that  your  name  (amongst  the  New-England  magistrates 
printed,  to  the  Parliament  and  army,  by  H.  Nort.  Rous, 
&c.)  is  not  blurred,  but  rather  honored,  for  your  prudent 
and  moderate  hand  in  the  late  Quakers'  trials  amongst  us. 
And  it  is  said,  that  in  the  late  Parliament,  yourself  were 
one  of  the  three  in  nomination  for  General  Governor  over 
New-England,  which  however  that  design  ripened  not,  yet 
your  name  keeps  up  a  high  esteem,  &c.  I  have  seen  your 
hand  to  a  letter  to  this  colony,  as  to  your  late  purchase  of 
some  land  at  Narraganset.*  The  sight  of  your  hand  hath 
quieted  some  jealousies  amongst  us,  that  the  Bay,  by  this 
purchase,  designed  some  prejudice  to  the  liberty  of  con- 
science amongst  us.  We  are  in  consultations  how  to  an- 
swer that  letter,  and  my  endeavor  shall  be,  with  God's  help, 
to  welcome,  with  both  our  hands  and  arms,  your  interest 
in  these  parts,  though  we  have  no  hope  to  enjoy  your  per- 
sonal residence  amongst  us.  I  rejoice  to  hear  that  you 
gain,  by  new  plantations,  upon  this  wilderness.  I  fear  that 
many  precious  souls  will  be  glad  to  hide  their  heads,  short- 
ly, in  these  parts.  Your  candle  and  mine  draws  towards 
its  end.  The  Lord  graciously  help  us  to  shine  in  light  and 
love  universally,  to  all  that  fear  his  name,  without  that  mo- 
nopoly of  the  affection  to  such  of  our  own  persuasion  only  ; 
for  the  common  enemy,  the  Romish  wolf,  is  very  high  in 
resolution,  and  hope,  and  advantage  to  make  a  prey  on  all, 
of  all  sorts,  that  desire  to  fear  God.  Divers  of  our  neigh- 
bors thankfully  re-salute  you  We  have  buried,  this  win- 
ter, Mr.  Olney's  son,  whom,  formerly,  you  heard  to  be  afflict- 
ed with  a  lethargy.  He  lay  two  or  three  days  wholly  sense- 
less, until  his  last  groans.  My  youngest  son,  Joseph,  was 
troubled  with  a  spice  of  an  epilepsy.  We  used  some  rem- 
edies, but  it  hath  pleased  God,   by  his  taking  of  tobacco, 

"  In  1G59,  Mr.  Joljn  Winthrop,  Major  Humphrey  Atherton,  and 
associates,  purchased  of  the  Narraganset  sachems  two  tracts  of  land, 
joining  to  the  Bay,  one  lying  to  the  southward  of  Mr.  Smith's  trad- 
ing-house, and  the  other  to  the  northward  of  it,  and  settled  it  with 
inhabitants.     1  His.  Col.  v.  p.  217. 

In  1C57,  Mr.  William  Coddington  and  Mr.  Benedict  Arnold  pur- 
chased, of  the  same  sachems,  the  island  Canonicut,  which,  in  1G78, 
was  incorporated  as  a  township,  by  the  name  of  Jamestown.     Ibid. 

In  the  same  year,  Mr.  John  Hull,  Mr.  John  Porter,  and  three  per- 
sons more,  purchased  a  large  tract  of  land,  in  the  southern  parts  of 
the  Narraganset  country,  and  called  Petaquamscut  Purchase,     ibid- 


312  MEMOIR     OF 

perfectly,  as  we  hope,  to  cure  him.  Good  Mr.  Parker,  of 
Boston,  passing  from  Prudence  Island,  at  his  coming  on 
shore,  on  Seekonk  land,  trod  awry  upon  a  stone  or  stick, 
and  fell  down,  and  broke  the  small  bone  of  his  leg.  He 
hath  lain  by  of  it  all  this  winter,  and  the  last  week  was 
carried  to  Boston  in  a  horse  litter.  Some  fears  there  were 
of  a  gangrene.  But,  Sir,  I  use  too  much  boldness  and  pro- 
lixity.    I  shall  now  only  subscribe  myself, 

"  Your  unworthy  friend, 

''R.  W. 
''  Sir,  my  loving  respects  to  Mr.  Stone,   Mr.  Lord,  Mr. 
Allen,  Mr.  Webster,  and  other  loving  friends." 

"  To  my   honored,   kind   friend,   Mr.   Winthrop,   Gov- 
ernor of  Connecticut,  these  presents. 

"  Providence,  8,  7,  60  (so  called.) 
''Sir, 

"  A  sudden  warning  gives  me  but  time  of  this  abrupt 
salutation  to  your  kind  self  and  Mrs.  Winthrop,  wishing 
you  peace.  I  promised  to  a  neighbor,  a  former  servant  of 
your  father's,  (Joshua  Windsor,)  to  write  a  line,  on  his  be- 
half, and  at  his  desire,  unto  you.  His  prayer  to  you  is, 
that  when  you  travel  toward  Boston,  you  would  please  to 
come  by  Providence,  and  spare  one  hour  to  heal  an  old 
sore, — a  controversy  between  him  and  most  of  his  neigh- 
bors, in  which,  I  am  apt  to  think,  he  hath  suffered  some 
wrong.  He  hath  promised  to  submit  to  your  sentence. 
His  opposite,  one  James  Ashton,  being  desired  by  me  to 
nominate  also,  he  resolves  also  to  submit  to  your  sentence, 
which  will  concern  more  will  and  stomach  than  damage  ; 
for  the  matter  only  concerns  a  few  poles  of  ground,  wherein 
Joshua  hath  cried  out  of  wrong  these  many  years.  I  hope, 
Sir,  the  blessed  Lord  will  make  you  a  blessed  instrument 
of  chiding  the  winds  and  seas  ;  and  I  shall  rejoice  in  your 
presence  amongst  us.  There  are  greater  ulcers  in  my 
thoughts  at  present,  which,  I  fear,  are  incurable,  and  that 
it  hath  pleased  the  Most  Wise  and  Most  High  to  pass  an 
irrevocable  sentence  of  amputations  and  cauterizations 
upon  the  poor  Protestant  party.  The  clouds  gather  mighty 
fast  and  thick  upon  our  heads  from  all  the  Popish  quarters. 
It  hath  pleased  the  Lord  to  glad  the  Romish  conclave  with 
he  departure  of  those  two  mighty  bulwarks  of  the  Protes- 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  313 

tants,  Oliver  and  Giistavus  ;  to  unite,  (I  think  by  this  time) 
all  the  Catholic  kings  and  princes,  for  Portugal  was  like, 
very  like,  of  late,  to  return  to  the  yoke  of  Spain,  whose 
treasure  from  the  Indies  it  hath  pleased  God  to  send  home, 
so  wonderfully  great  and  rich  this  year,  that  I  cannot  but 
fear  the  Lord  hath  some  mighty  w^ork  to  effect  with  it. 
We  know  the  Catholic  King  was  in  debt,  but  he  now  over- 
flows with  millions,  which  God  is  most  like  to  expend 
against  the  Protestants  or  the  Turks,  the  two  great  enemies, 
(the  sword-fish  and  the  thrasher)  against  the  Popish  levia- 
than. The  Presbyterian  party  in  England  and  Scotland  is 
yet  very  likely  to  make  some  struggle  against  the  Popish 
invasions;  and  yet  in  the  end  I  fear  (as  long  I  have  feared, 
and  long  since  told  Oliver,  to  which  he  much  inclined,) 
the  bloody  whore  is  not  yet  drunk  enough  with  the  blood 
of  the  saints  and  witnesses  of  Jesus.  One  cordial  is, 
(amongst  so  many  the  merciful  Lord  hath  provided)  that 
that  whore  will  shortly  appear  so  extremely  loathsome,  in 
her  drunkenness,  bestialities,  &c.  that  her  bewitched  par- 
amours will  tear  her  flesh,  and  burn  her  with  fire  unquench- 
able. Here  is  a  sound  that  Fairfax,  and  about  two  hun- 
dred of  the  House  with  him,  differ  with  the  King.  The 
merciful  Lord  fit  us  to  hear  and  feel  more.  It  is  a  very 
thick  and  dreadful  mist  and  swamp,  with  which  the  Lord 
hath  a  great  while  suffered  us  to  labor  in,  as  hoping  to 
wade  out,  break  through,  and  escape  shipwreck.  In 
Richard  Protector's  Parliament,  they  fell  into  three  fac- 
tions presently  :  royalists,  protectorians,  (which  were 
most  Presbyterian,  and  earned  it,)  and  commonwealth's 
men.  The  Presbyterians,  when  General  Monk  brought  in 
the  secluded  members,  carried  it  again,  of  late,  clearly, 
and  so  vigorously  against  the  Papists,  that  stricter  laws 
than  ever.  There  must  surely,  then,  be  great  flames,  be- 
fore the  King  can  accomplish  his  engagements  to  the  Popish 
party. 

"  You  know  well,  Sir,  at  sea,  the  first  entertainment  of  a 
storm  is  with,  down  with  top-sails.  The  Lord  mercifully 
help  us  to  lower,  and  make  us  truly  more  and  more  low, 
humble,  contented,  thankful  for  the  least  crumbs  of  mercy. 
But  the  storm  increaseth,  and  trying  with  our  mainsails  and 
mizzens  v/ill  not  do.  We  must,  therefore,  humbly  beg 
patience  from  the  Father  of  Lights  and  God  of  all  mercies, 
27* 


314  MEMOIR     OP 

to  lay  at  Hull,  in  hope.  It  was  a  motto  in  one  of  the  late 
Parliaments  :  cornets,  under  a  shower  of  blood  '  Trans- 
ibit.' 

"  Sir,  my  neighbor,  Mrs.  Scott,  is  come  from  England  ; 
and,  what  the  whip  at  Boston  could  not  do,  converse  with 
friends  in  England,  and  their  arguments,  have,  in  a  great 
measure  drawn  her  from  the  Quakers,  and  wholly  from 
their  meetings.  Try  the  spirits.  There  are  many  abroad, 
and  must  be,  but  the  Lord  will  be  glorious,  in  plucking  up 
whatever  his  holy  hand  hath  not  planted.  My  brother  runs 
strongly  to  Origen's  notion  of  universal  mercy  at  last, 
against  an  eternal  sentence.  Our  times  will  call  upon  us 
for  thorough  discussions.  The  fire  is  like  to  try  us.  It  is  a 
wonderful  mercy  the  barbarians  are  yet  so  quiet.  A  portion 
of  our  neighbors  are  just  now  come  home,  re  infecta.  The 
Mohegans  would  not  sally,  and  the  Narragansets  would  not 
spoil  the  corn,  for  fear  of  offending  the  English.  The  Lord 
mercifully  guide  the  councils  of  the  commissioners.  Mr. 
Arnold,  Mr.  Brenton,  and  others,  struggle  against  your  in- 
terest at  Narraganset ;  but  I  hope  your  presence  might  do 
much  good  amongst  us  in  a  few  days. 

*'  Sir,  I  am,  unworthy,  yours. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  315 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


Infant  baptism — half-way  covenant — laws  to  support  religion — char- 
ter from  Charles  II. — first  meeting  of  Assembly — Mr.  Clarke — 
difficulties  about  boundaries — charges  against  Rhode-Island,  con- 
cerning Catholics  and  Quakers. 

It  may  be  useful  to  look,  for  a  moment,  at  the  difficul- 
ties which  arose,  about  this  time,  in  the  other  colonies,  re- 
specting infant  baptism.  This  rite  had  been  hitherto  ad- 
ministered to  those  children,  whose  immediate  parents  were 
both  members  of  a  church.  But  as  the  country  increased, 
many  persons,  who  were  not  members  of  a  church,  had 
children,  for  whom,  nevertheless,  they  desired  baptism. 
The  question  accordingly  arose,  whether  the  children  of 
such  parents  could  properly  be  admitted  to  baptism.  It 
was,  on  the  one  hand,  a  departure  from  the  principle,  that 
as  faith  is  required  in  the  Scriptures  as  a  prerequisite  to 
baptism,  and  as  the  infant  could  not  exercise  faith,  it  must 
consequently  be  baptized  on  the  ground  of  its  parents' 
faith.  It  seemed  hard,  on  the  other  hand,  that  if  there  was 
any  virtue  in  infant  baptism,  the  innocent  child  should  be 
deprived  of  it,  because  its  parents  were  not  pious.  The 
question  began  to  be  publicly  agitated.  The  magistrates 
of  Connecticut,  about  the  year  1656,  sent  several  queries 
on  the  subject  to  the  magistrates  of  Massachusetts.*  A 
meeting  of  ministers  was  held  in  Boston,  June  4,  1657,  at 
which  the  "  half-way  covenant,"  as  it  was  called,  was 
adopted.  "  It  provided,  that  all  persons  of  sober  life  and 
correct  sentiments,  without  being  examined  as  to  a  change 
of  heart,  might  profess  religion,  or  become  members  of  the 
church,  and  have  their  children  baptized,  though  they  did 
not  come  to  the  Lord's  table. "t  This  disastrous  departure 
from  the  Scriptures,  and  from  the  former  practice  of  the 
churches,  was  not  unanimously  adopted.  Many  ministers 
and  churches  were  opposed  to   it.     A   synod  was  held,  in 

*  Hubbard,  chap.  Ixiv. 

\  Hawes'  Tribute  to  the  Memory  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  149. 


316  MEMOIR     OF 

Boston,  in  September,  1662,  including  all  the  ministers  in 
Massachusetts.  This  body  ratified  the  decision  of  the 
council  of  1657.  But  parties  were  immediately  formed, 
for  and  against  the  synod.  The  Rev.  Charles  Chauncey, 
President  of  Harvard  College,  and  the  Rev.  Increase  Ma- 
ther, wrote  against  the  decision,  while  others  wrote  on  the 
opposite  side.  The  country  was  throv/n  into  a  ferment. 
A  division  took  place  in  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  and 
the  Old  South  Church  was  formed  in  May,  1669,  by  a  mi- 
nority of  the  First  Church,  the  majority  of  whose  members 
opposed  the  decision  of  the  synod,  while  the  seceding 
minority  approved  it.  The  General  Court  took  up  the 
subject,  and  at  its  session,  in  May,  1670,  pronounced  the 
formation  of  the  new  church  to  be  irreligious,  illegal  and 
disorderly.  But  public  opinion  set  in  favor  of  the  half- 
way covenant.  At  the  next  election,  the  members  vv^ho 
had  opposed  the  new  church  were  left  out,  and  others,  of 
different  opinions,  elected.  The  Court  then  passed  a  vote 
in  favor  of  the  new  church,  and  the  cause  of  innovation 
and  corruption  of  the  purity  of  the  churches  triumphed.* 
This  result  generally  ensues,  when  questions  pertaining  to 
religion  are  decided  at  the  polls. 

The  half-way  covenant  was,  at  first,  opposed  by  many 
churches,  but  it  after v/ards  extensively  prevailed,  and 
"  wherever,"  says  Dr.  Havv'es,  "  it  did  prevail,  the  conse- 
quences Vv^ere  eminently  unhappy.  Great  numbers  came 
forward  to  own  the  covenant,  as  it  was  called,  and  had  their 
children  baptized  ;  but  very  lew  joined  the  church,  in  full 
communion,  or  partook  of  the  sacrament.  Satisfied  with 
being  half-way  in  the  church,  and  enjoying  a  part  of  its 
privileges,  they  settled  dovvn  in  a  state  of  dull  and  heart- 
less formality,  and  felt  little  or  no  concern  respecting  their 
present  condition,  or  future  prospects."! 

But  all  men  were  not  content  to  be  half-way  in  the 
church.  About  the  year  1700,  Mr.  Stoddard,  a  distin- 
guished minister  of  Northampton,  came  to  the  conclusion, 
that  the  Lord's  Supper  is  a  converting  ordinance,  and  that 
all  persons  ought  to  come  to  this  ordinance.  Thus  all  the 
barriers  wliich  separate   the   church  from  the  world   were 


*  Dr.  Wisner's  Historical  Discourses,  p.  10. 

i  Hawes'  Tribute  to  the  Memory  of  the  Pilgrims,  p.  150. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  317 

thrown  down,  and  the  consequences  were  deplorable. 
Multitudes  of  unconverted  persons  rushed  into  the  churches, 
anxious  for  the  privileges  of  church  members,  for  political 
purposes.  The  church  at  Northampton  is  a  signal  in- 
stance of  the  effects  of  the  system.  The  great  President 
Edwards,  after  he  had  been  pastor  for  several  years,  en- 
deavored to  introduce  the  old  practice  of  discipline,  and  to 
require  piety  as  a  qualification  for  membership.  But  the 
worldly  feeling  in  his  parish  was  too  strong,  and  notwith- 
standing his  colossal  reputation,  and  his  faithful  and  suc- 
cessful labors,  he  was  expelled  from  his  pastoral  office,  in 
a  most  ungrateful  and  unkind  manner. 

We  may  mention,  here,  another  cause  of  injury  to  the 
purity  and  permanent  prosperity  of  the  churches.  The 
support  of  the  ministry,  by  taxes,  levied  on  all  the  inhab- 
itants, operated  oppressively  on  the  members  of  other  de- 
nominations, created  much  distress  to  individuals,  and  pro- 
duced a  wide-spread  dissatisfaction  in  the  community.  As 
the  right  of  a  voice  in  the  election  of  a  minister  was  justly 
claimed  by  those  who  were  obliged  to  pay  taxes  for  his 
support,  the  character  of  the  minister  depended,  of  course, 
on  that  of  a  majority  of  the  voters  in  a  parish.  The  con- 
sequence has  been,  that  in  many  instances,  when  the  ma- 
jority have  become  opposed  to  the  doctrines  of  the  existing 
church,  the  minister  has  been  expelled,  another  of  opposite 
sentiments  has  been  chosen,  the  meeting-house  has  been 
seized,  and  funds,  contributed  by  pious  men  of  former 
generations,  for  the  support  of  the  ministry,  have  been  ap- 
plied to  the  maintenance  of  men  to  whom  those  contrib- 
utors would  have  refused  to  listen.  This  is  the  natural 
effect  of  the  system,  and  those  who  uphold  it  have  no  right 
to  complain.  The  American  principle,  that  representation 
accompanies  taxation,  is  just.  If  men  are  taxed  by  law  to 
support  a  minister,  they  have  a  right  to  a  voice  in  his 
election,  and  they  will,  of  course,  choose  a  minister  whose 
principles  accord,  as  nearly  as  possible,  with  their  own. 
Reflecting  and  pious  men,  generally,  are  now,  it  is  be- 
lieved, thoroughly  convinced,  that  the  principles  of  Roger 
Williams  furnish  the  only  secure  basis  for  the  peace  and 
prosperity  of  a  church.  It  is  hoped  that  the  laws  of  Mas- 
sachusetts will,  ere  long,  be  conformed  to  these  principles, 


318  MEMOIR      OF 

and  religion  be  committed  to  the  protection  of  God  and  of 
the  liberal  and  pure-hearted  disciples  of  the  Redeemer.* 

This  subject  has  detained  us  from  our  main  theme, 
though  it  is  appropriate  to  a  work  which  we  design  to  be 
an  exposition  of  the  nature  and  effects  both  of  the  princi- 
ples of  religious  liberty  and  of  the  opposite  doctrines. 

Mr.  Clarke  continued  his  faithful  labors  in  England,  and 
on  the  8th  of  July,  1663,  he  obtained  from  Charles  II.  a 
charter,  which  continues,  till  the  present  day,  to  be  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  State. t  It  commits  the  govern- 
ment of  the  colony  to  a  Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and 
ten  Assistants,  to  be  elected  annually,  and  a  House  of 
Deputies,  consisting  of  six  from  Newport,  four  from  each 
of  the  towns  of  Providence,  Portsmouth  and  Warwick,  and 
two  from  each  of  the  other  towns.  It  defines  the  bounda- 
ries of  the  colony,  about  which  disputes  existed  for  many 
years.  It  contains  this  most  important  provision,  in 
which  the  principles  on  which  the  colony  was  founded 
are  embodied :  "  No  person  within  the  said  colony,  at 
any  time  hereafter,  shall  be  any  wise  molested,  punished, 
disquieted,  or  called  in  question,  for  any  differences  in 
opinion,  in  matters  of  religion,  who  do  not  actually  disturb 
the  civil  peace  of  our  said  colony  ;  but  that  all  and  every 
person  and  persons  may,  from  time  to  time,   and  at  all 

*  A  resolution  to  alter  the  third  article  of  the  Constitution  of 
Massachusetts,  as  a  preparatory  step  towards  the  repeal  of  the  laws 
for  the  support  of  religion  by  taxation,  has  been  adopted  by  the 
people,  since  the  text  was  written.  It  will,  undoubtedly,  be  follow- 
ed by  a  repeal  of  the  laws. 

t  It  is  an  honorable  proof  of  steadiness  of  character  in  the  people 
of  Rhode-Island,  that  they  have  continued  to  prosper  under  this 
charter  for  one  hundred  and  seventy  years.  No  interruption  of  the 
government  has  occurred  during  this  long  period,  and  no  attempt 
has  been  made  to  resist  it.  No  community  ever  enjoyed  more  per- 
fect freedom,  and  yet  none  was  ever  more  quiet  and  obedient  to  the 
laws.  It  is  a  gratifying  evidence,  that  a  truly  free  government  is 
more  stable  than  any  other.  The  growth  of  the  State  has  made  some 
provisions  of  the  charter  operate  unjustly.  Providence,  for  exam- 
ple, with  sixteen  thousand  inhabitants,  sends  only  four  representa- 
tives to  the  General  Assembly,  while  Portsmouth,  with  seventeen 
hundred  inhabitants,  sends  four,  and  Newport,  with  eight  thousand, 
sends  six.  An  attempt  was  made,  a  few  jears  since,  to  obtain  a  new 
Constitution,  but  it  did  not  succeed. 


n  O  G  E  R     WILLIAMS.  319 

times  hereafter,  freely  and  fully  have  and  enjoy  his  own 
and  their  judgments  and  consciences,  in  matters  of  reli- 
gious concernments,  throughout  the  tract  of  land  hereafter 
mentioned,  they  behaving  themselves  peaceably  and  quietly, 
and  not  using  this  liberty  to  licentiousness  and  profane- 
ness,  nor  to  the  civil  injury  or  outward  disturbance  of 
others."  * 

This  noble  declaration  is  in  accordance  with  the  ad- 
dress of  the  petitioners  to  his  Majesty,  in  which  they 
"  freely  declared,  that  it  is  much  on  their  hearts  (if  they 
be  permitted)  to  hold  forth  a  lively  experiment,  that  a  most 
flourishing  civil  state  may  stand,  and  best  be  maintained,  and 
that  among  our  English  subjects,  with  a  full  liberty  in  re- 
ligious concernments  ;  and  that  true  piety,  rightly  ground- 
ed upon  Gospel  principles,  will  give  the  best  and  greatest 
security  to  sovereignty,  and  will  lay  in  the  hearts  of  men 
the  strongest  obligations  to  true  loyalty." 

This  charter  was  received  with  great  joy.  It  was 
brought  from  Boston,  by  Capt.  George  Baxter,  and  was  read 
publicly  at  Nev/port,  November  24,  1663.  The  records 
say,  that  "the  said  letters,  with  his  Majesty's  royal  stamp, 
and  the  broad  seal,  with  much  beseeming  gravity,  were 
held  up  on  high,  and  presented  to  the  perfect  view  of  the 
people." 

Thanks  were  voted  to  the  King,  to  the  Earl  of  Claren- 
don, and  to  Mr.  Clarke,  together  vv^ith  a  resolution  to  pay 
all  his  expenses,  and  to  present  him  with  a  hundred  pounds. 
Thanks  were  also  voted  to  Capt.  Baxter,  with  a  present  of 
thirty  pounds,  besides  his  expenses  from  Boston.! 

The  first  Assembly  under  the  new  charter  was  held 
March  1,  1663-4.  Mr.  Benedict  Arnold  was  created  by 
the  charter  the  first  Governor,  and  among  the  Assistants 
was  Mr.  Williams. 

The  Assembly  now  assumed  a  peremptory  tone  towards 
the  disturbers  of  the  public  peace  at  Pawtuxet  and  War- 
v.ick,  and  towards  intruders  at  Narraganset. 


*See  the  charter,  Appendix,  G. 

t  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  on  May  9,  1663,  the  town  of  Provi- 
dence voted,  that  '-one  hundred  acres  of  upland  and  six  acres  of 
meadow  shall  be  reserved  for  the  maintenance  of  a  school  in  this 
town." 


320  MEMOIR     OP 

Mr.  Williams  was  appointed  to  transcribe  the  charter.* 

At  the  session,  in  May,  1664,  Mr.  Williams  was  again 
an  Assistant.  At  this  session,  the  seal  of  the  colony  was 
fixed,  an  anchor,  with  the  word  Hope  over  it,  and  the 
words  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  Plantations. 

Mr.  Williams  was  this  year  appointed  one  of  a  com- 
mittee to  review  the  laws,  and  one  of  another  committee  to 
fix  the  eastern  line  of  the  state. 

At  this  session,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  audit  Mr. 
Clarke's  accounts.  The  sum  of  c£343  15^.  6d.,  was  found 
to  be  due  to  him.  Mr.  Clarke  returned  from  England,  in 
June,  1664,  after  an  absence,  in  the  service  of  the  colony, 
of  twelve  years.  He  was  afterwards  elected  Deputy  Gov- 
ernor three  years  successively.  He  was  an  able  and  good 
man,  whom  the  State  of  Rhode-Island  ought  to  remember 
with  respect  and  gratitude,  as  one  of  her  chief  benefactors. 
He  died  April  20,  1676.  The  money  due  to  him  from  the 
colony  was  never  paid,  during  his  life,  though  the  Assem- 
bly frequently  urged  the  towns  to  pay  it,  and  Mr.  Williams 
used  his  influence  to  accomplish  this  act  of  public  justice.! 
Mr.  Clarke,  in  his  will,  left  a  considerable  estate,  to  be  ap- 
propriated to  "  the  relief  of  the  poor,  or  bringing  up  children 
unto  learning." 

An  account  of  the  difficulties  with  Massachusetts,  Con- 
necticut and  Plymouth,  respecting  boundaries,  belongs 
rather  to  a  history  of  Rhode-Island,  than  to  this  work. 
They  continued  for  several  years.  Commissioners  were  ap- 
pointed by  the  King,  in  1664,  to  settle  the  disputes  respecting 
the  Narraganset  country,  which  was  claimed  by  Connecti- 
cut, and  by  individuals,  who  had  purchased  lands  there. 
But  the  matter  was  not  settled  for  many  years.  The  bounda- 
ries fixed  by  the  charter  were  at  length  ascertained  and 
acknowledged. I 

*  At  this  session,  Captain  John  Cranston  was  licensed  to  practise 
physic,  witli  the  title  of''  Doctor  of  Physic  and  Chirurgery." 

1  Mr.  Williams  felt  a  great  esteem  for  Mr.  Clarke.  In  the  library 
of  Brown  University,  is  a  copy  of  "The  Bloody  Tenet  yet  more 
Bloody,"  bequeathed  to  the  library  by  the  Rev.  Isaac  Backus.  On 
a  blank  leaf  are  these  words,  in  Mr.  Williams'  hand  writing:  ''For 
his  honored  and  beloved  Mr.  John  Clarke,  an  eminent  witness  of 
Christ  Jesus,  against  the  Bloody  Doctrine  of  Persecution,  &c." 

t  For  documents  on  the  subject  of  boundaries,  see  1  His.  Col.  v. 
pp  216—252.  See  also,  2  His.  Col.  vii.  pp.  75—113,  Rhode-Island 
State  Papers,  furnished  by  the  Hon.  Samuel  Eddy. 


nOGER      WILLIAMS.  321 

Two  topics  deserve  notice  here,  because  they  affect  the 
character  of  Roger  Williams,  and  of  Rhode-Island.  We 
allude  to  the  charges,  that  in  1663-4,  Roman  Catholics 
were  excluded  from  the  rights  of  citizens,  and  that  in  1665, 
oppressive  laws  were  enacted  against  the  duakers. 

The  first  of  these  charges  is  made  by  Chalmers,*  whose 
situation,  as  chief  clerk  in  the  Plantation  Office,  in  Eng- 
land, gave  him  access  to  original  documents.  He  asserts, 
that  at  the  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly,  March  1, 
1663-4,  it  was  enacted,  "  that  no  freeman  shall  be  impris- 
oned, or  deprived  of  his  freehold,  or  condemned,  but  by 
the  judgment  of  his  peers,  or  the  law  of  the  colony  ;  that 
no  tax  shall  be  imposed  or  required  of  the  colonists,  but  by 
the  act  of  the  General  Assembly  ;  that  all  men  [professing 
Christianity]  of  competent  estates,  and  of  civil  conversation, 
who  acknowledge  and  are  obedient  to  the  civil  magistrates, 
though  of  different  judgments  in  religious  affairs,  [Roman 
Catholics  only  excepted]  shall  be  admitted  freemen,  or 
may  choose,  or  be  chosen,  colonial  officers. "t 

Such  an  act  would,  indeed,  have  been  an  anomaly  in  the 
legislation  of  Rhode-Island,  and  it  has  been  alleged  as  an 
evidence  of  inconsistency  in  Roger  Williams  and  the  col- 
ony. The  subject  has,  therefore,  been  examined  with  great 
care.  The  Hon.  Samuel  Eddy,  for  many  years  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  in  Rhode-Island,  declares  ij  "  I  have  formerly 
examined  the  records  of  the  State,  from  its  first  settlement, 
with  a  view  to  historical  information,  and  lately  from  1663 
to  1719,  with  a  particular  view  to  this  law  excluding  Roman 
Catholics  from  the  privileges  of  freemen,  and  can  find  noth- 
ing that  has  any  reference  to  it,  nor  any  thing  that  gives 
any  preference  or  privileges  to  men  of  one  set  of  religious 
opinions  over  those  of  another,  until  the  revision  of  1745." 

This  testimony  might,  alone,  be  sufficient  to  disprove 
the  allegation,  though  it  is  possible,  that  such  an  act  might 
be  passed,  and  not  be  recorded.  But  it  is  not  probable, 
and  when  the  uniform  policy  of  the  colony  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  other  circumstances,  are  considered,  it  becomes 


-  Political  Annals,  h.i.c.  xi.  pp.  27G,  279. 
t  Holmes'  Am.  Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  3.36. 

t  Walsh's  "Appeal  from  the  Judtrments  of  Great  Britain,"  pp. 
427-435.  '^ 

23 


S22  MEMOIR      OF 

morally  certain,  that  no  such  act  ever  received  the  sanction 
of  the  Legislature  of  Rhode-Island. 

That  entire  liberty  was  professed  and  maintained, 
from  the  commencement  of  the  colony,  is  certain.  It  was 
one  of  the  fundamental  regulations  in  the  respective  towns, 
and  when  they  were  united,  under  the  first  charter,  it  was 
expressly  enacted,  that,  while  the  civil  laws  should  be 
obeyed,  "  all  men  may  walk  as  their  consciences  persuade 
them,  every  one  in  the  name  of  his  God."* 

The  second  charter  declared,  that  "  no  person  within  the 
said  colony,  at  any  time  hereafter,  shall  be  anywise  molest- 
ed, punished  or  disquieted,  or  called  in  question,  for  any 
differences  in  opinion,  in  matters  of  religion,  and  do  not 
actually  disturb  the  civil  peace  of  our  said  colony." 

It  is  utterly  incredible,  that  the  Assembly,  while  they 
were  passing  votes  of  thanks  to  the  King  for  the  charter, 
would  enact  a  law  in  violation  of  his  positive  declaration  in 
the  instrument  itself,  and  at  variance  with  their  previous 
policy  and  with  all  their  institutions.  An  exclusion  of 
Catholics,  moreover,  would  not  only  have  violated  the 
charter,  and  thus  offended  the  King,  but  the  legislators  of 
Rhode-Island  had  sufficient  knov.^ledge  of  Charles,  to  be 
aware,  that  nothing  would  be  less  acceptable  to  him  than 
a  law  against  the  Catholics,  for  whom  he  endeavored  to 
obtain  toleration  in  England. 

It  may  be  added,  that  tliere  were  no  Catholics  in  Rhode- 
Island,  so  late  as  1695,  according  to  Cotton  Mather. t  Mr. 
Eddy  well  remarks :  "  Why  a  law  should  be  made  to  ex- 
clude from  the  privileges  of  freemen,  those  who  were  not 
inhabitants,  by  those  who  believed  all  to  be  equally  entitled 
to  their  religious  opinions,  is  difficult  to  conceive." 

At  the  next  session,  in  May,  1G64,  the  Assembly  enact- 
ed, that,  "at  present  this  General  Assembly  judgeth  it  their 


*  This  was  tiie  Rhode-IslaiKl  doctrine  and  practice  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  was  deeply  rooted  in  all  liearts.  Among  the  deputies  to 
the  General  Assembly,  in  1C75,  the  name,  "  Toleration  Harris," 
occurs. 

t  He  says,  in  this  year,  that  Rhode-Island  colony  ''  has  been  a 
colluvies  of  Antinomians,  Familists,  Anabaptists,  Antisabbatarians, 
Arminians,  Socinians,  Quakers,  Ranters,  every  thing  in  the  world 
but  Roman  Catholics  and  true  Christians — though  of  the  latter.  1 
hope,  there  have  been  more  than  of  the  former  among  them." — Mag- 


ROGER    WILLIAM  S.  323 

duty  to  signify  his  Majesty's  gracious  pleasure  vouchsafed 
in  these  words  to  us,  verbatim,  (viz.)" — quoting  the  decla- 
ration from  the  charter  which  is  cited  above. 

At  the  session  in  May,  1665,  in  answer  to  certJlin  pro- 
positions of  the  King's  Commissioners,  in  which  the  King 
requires,  that  all  the  citizens  shall  enjoy  equal  civil  and 
religious  rights,  without  regard  to  their  opinions,  the  As- 
sembly say :  "  This  Assembly  do,  with  all  gladness  of 
heart,  and  humbleness  of  mind,  acknowledge  the  great 
goodness  of  God  and  favor  of  his  Majesty  in  that  respect, 
declaring,  that  as  it  hath  been  a  principle  set  forth  and 
maintained  in  this  colony,  from  the  very  beginning  thereof ^ 
so  it  is  much  on  their  hearts  to  preserve  the  same  liberty 
to  all  persons  within  this  colony  forever,  as  to  the  worship 
of  God  therein,  taking  care  for  the  preservation  of  the  civil 
government,  to  the  doing  of  justice  and  preserving  each 
other's  privileges  from  wrong  and  violence  to  others." 

Mr.  Eddy  accounts  for  the  existence  of  the  spurious 
words  in  the  copy  of  the  laws  from  which  Mr.  Chalmers 
quoted,  by  supposing,  that  they  were  inserted,  without  au- 
thority, at  some  period  subsequent  to  1719,  by  a  revising 
committee,  who  might  be  desirous  to  please  the  government 
in  England.  Mr.  Eddy  says,  in  conclusion  :  "  Thus  you 
have  positive  and  indubitable  e^ddence,  that  the  law  exclud- 
ing Roman  Catholics  from  the  privileges  of  freemen  was 
not  passed  in  1663-4,  but  that  they  were  by  law,  at  this 
time,  and  long  after,  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  of  other 
citizens ;  and  satisfactory  evidence  that  these  privileges 
were  continued  by  law  until  1719,  when,  or  in  one  of  the 
subsequent  revisions,  the  words  professing  Christianity, 
and  Roman  Catholics  only  excepted,  were  inserted  by  the 
revising  committee." 

If,  however,  such  an  act  had  been  passed,  it  would  not 
necessarily  impeach  the  character  of  Mr.  Williams.  He 
was  an  Assistant,  only,  in  the  Legislature  of  1663-4,  and 
could  not  be  responsible  for  its  acts.  His  own  principles 
are  on  record.  He  contended  for  liberty  of  conscience 
to  all  men  without  any  restriction.  In  his  "  Hireling 
Ministry  none  of  Christ's,"  printed  in  1652 — only  eleven 
years  before — he  says  :  "  All  these  consciences,  (yea,  the 
very  conscience  of  Papists,  Jews,  &c.  as  I  have  proved  at 
large  in  my  answer  to  Mr.  Cotton's  washings)  ought  freeh 


324  MEMOIR      OP 

and  impartially  to  be  permitted  their  several  respective 
worships,  their  ministers  of  worships,  and  what  way  of 
maintaining  them  they  please." 

We  proceed,  now,  to  the  other  charge.  It  is  contained 
in  an  article,  in  1  His.  Col.  v.  pp.  216-220,  signed  Francis 
Brinley,  whose  statement  is  repeated  in  Holmes'  American 
Annals,  vol.  i.  p.  341.  Mr.  Brinley  says:  "1665.  The 
government  and  council  of  Rhode-Island,  &c.  passed  an  order 
for  outlawing  the  people  called  duakers,  because  they 
would  not  bear  arms,  and  to  seize  their  estates ;  but  the 
people  in  general  rose  up  against  these  severe  orders,  and 
would  not  suffer  it." 

We  are  again  indebted  to  Mr.  Eddy  for  the  means  of 
correcting  a  mistake.  He  says  (2  His.  Col.  vii.  p.  97,)  that 
the  account  of  Mr.  Brinley  "  is  incorrect  and  partial." 
There  was  a  difficulty,  in  which  the  Quakers,  it  seems, 
felt  themselves  aggrieved,  but  it  was  not  the  result  of  any 
acts  aimed  directly  at  them.  The  origin  of  it,  as  Mr.  Eddy 
thinks,  was  this  :  The  commissioners  of  the  King  required, 
in  his  name,  "  that  all  householders,  inhabiting  this  colony, 
take  the  oath  of  allegiance."  The  Assembly,  in  reply, 
stated,  that  it  had  been  the  uniform  practice  of  the  colony, 
in  pursuance  of  their  great  principles  of  religious  liberty, 
to  allow  those  who  objected  to  take  an  oath,  to  make  an  en- 
gagement, under  the  penalty  for  false  swearing.  An  en- 
gagement was  accordingly  drawn  up,  in  which  the  individ- 
ual promised  to  bear  true  allegiance  to  the  King  and  his 
successors,  and  to  yield  "  due  obedience  unto  the  laws 
established  from  time  to  time."  The  Quakers,  it  appears, 
objected  to  this  part  of  the  engagement,  because  it  bound 
them  to  pay  obedience  to  the  militia  laws.  The  Assembly 
had  enacted,  that  those  who  did  not  take  the  engagement, 
should  not  be  permitted  to  "  vote  for  public  officers  or  dep- 
uties, or  enjoy  any  privilege  of  freemen."  Those  persons, 
consequently,  who  refused  to  take  the  engagement,  were 
disfranchised  ;  and  to  this  effect,  Mr.  Brinley  probably  al- 
ludes, when  he  says  that  the  Quakers  were  outlawed.  If 
so,  his  statement  is  very  loose  and  injurious,  for  it  im- 
plies, that  the  act  was  expressly  directed  against  them. 
But  there  was  no  design,  apparently,  on  the  part  of  the 
Assembly  to  affect  them.  The  King  commanded  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  to  require  an  oath  of  all<=  fiance.     They  dis* 


ROGER      W  I  L  L  I  A  ]M  S,  325 

peiised  with  the  oath,  but  required  an  engagement,  pro- 
mising, in  general  terms,  obedience  to  the  laws.  It  would 
seem,  that  all  the  citizens  might  have  safely  taken  the  en- 
gagement, reserving  their  opposition  to  particular  laws,  to 
which  they  might  be  conscientiously  opposed.  An  engage- 
ment to  obey  the  laws  would,  of  course,  mean  such  laws 
only  as  were  consistent  with  the  laws  of  God  and  v/ith  the 
rights  of  conscience.  The  Assembly  cannot,  at  any  rate, 
be  justly  charged  with  an  assault  on  the  Quakers.  The 
engagement  was  mitigated,  the  very  next  year,  to  suit  their 
views,  and  every  disposition  was  manifested  to  consult  their 
feelings  and  respect  their  rights.  One  of  their  number 
was,  the  next  year,  elected  Deputy  Governor. 


28* 


326  MEMOIR      OP 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Mr.  Williams'  public  services — religious  habits — eflorts  as  a  minis- 
ter— Indians — private  affairs — letter  to  John  Whipple. 

We  are  now  approaching  the  close  of  Mr.  Williams'  life. 
Years  were  increasing  upon  him,  and  abating  the  vigor  of 
his  body  and  the  ardor  of  his  mind.  Yet  we  find  his  name 
in  the  records  both  of  the  town  and  colony,  so  frequently, 
as  to  prove,  that  he  retained  his  zeal  for  the  public  wel- 
fare, and  that  he  enjoyed,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  a  large 
measure  of  public  confidence.  In  the  town  meetings,  he 
was  often  appointed  moderator.  He  was  appointed  as  a 
member  of  numerous  committees,  and  was  usually  select- 
ed, when  a  skilful  pen  was  needed  for  the  public  service. 

After  serving  the  colony  for  two  years,  as  President,  and 
repeatedly  as  Assistant,  or  Commissioner,  under  the  first 
charter,  he  occupied  a  seat  in  the  General  Assembly,  under 
the  new  charter,  as  an  Assistant,  in  the  years  1664,  1670, 
and  1671.  He  was  chosen,  in  1677,  but  he  refused  to 
serve,  on  account,  probably,  of  his  age.  He  was  a  Deputy 
from  Providence,  in  May,  1667. 

Of  his  religious  habits  we  have  little  knowledge.  We 
have  satisfactory  reasons,  however,  for  believing,  that  he 
preserved  the  character  of  an  upright  Christian.  His 
books  and  letters  are  distinguished  by  the  language  of 
piety,  and  his  general  conduct  exhibited  its  influence. 
Even  Cotton  Mather  confesses,  that  "  in  many  things  he 
acquitted  himself  so  laudably,  that  many  judicious  persons 
judged  him  to  have  had  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him,  dur- 
ing the  long  winter  of  this  retirement."*  He  had,  it  is  true, 
no  connection  with  any  church ;  a  circumstance,  which 
we  must  regret,  because  it  injured  his  reputation  and  his 
usefulness,  while  it  diminished  his  personal  enjoyment  and 
spiritual  growth.  But  we  know  that  his  reason  for  this 
course  was,  an  erroneous  idea,  that  the  true  church  v/as,  for 

*  Magnalia,  b.  vii.  c.  ii.  §8. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  327 

a  time,  lost.  He  did  not  undervalue  the  benefits  of  church 
fellowship,  but  ardently  longed  for  the  restoration  of  the 
church.  In  his  reply  to  George  Fox,  written  about  1G72, 
he  says,  (p.  66,)  '*  After  all  my  search,  and  examina- 
tions, and  considerations,  I  said,  I  do  profess  to  believe, 
that  some  come  nearer  to  the  first  primitive  churches,  and 
the  institutions  and  appointments  of  Christ,  than  others ; 
as  in  many  respects,  so  in  that  gallant,  and  heavenly,  and 
fundamental  principle,  of  the  true  matter  of  a  Christian 
congregation,  flock  or  society,  viz.  actual  believers,  true 
disciples  and  converts,  living  stones,  such  as  can  give 
some  account  how  the  grace  of  God  hath  appeared  unto 
them,  and  wrought  that  change  in  them.  I  professed,  that 
if  my  soul  could  find  rest,  in  joining  unto  any  of  the 
churches  professing  Christ  Jesus  now  extant,  I  would 
readily  and  gladly  do  it,  yea  unto  themselves,  whom  I  now 
opposed."* 

As  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  we  have  evidence  that  he 
did  not  wholly  discontinue  his  labors  ;  though  he  must, 
according  to  his  principles,  have  confined  himself  to 
"  prophecy,"  or  a  declaration  of  truth  and  vv^itness  against 
error.  Mr.  Callender  says,  (p.  57,)  "  Mr.  Williams  used 
to  uphold  a  public  worship,  sometimes,  though  not  weekly, 
as  many  now  alive  [1738]  remember,  and  he  used  to  go 
once  a  month,  for  many  years,  to  Mr.  Smith's,  in  the  Nar- 
raganset,  for  the  same  end."  If  persons  alive  in  1738, 
were  present  at  Mr.  Williams' meetings,  as  Mr.  Callender's 
expression  seems  to  imply,  those  meetings  must  have  been 
held  towards  the  close  of  his  life.  His  visits  to  Narragan- 
set  were  designed,  it  has  been  supposed,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Indians  ;  but  this  is  doubtful.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve, that  his  object  was  to  instruct  the  Vviiites,  who  either 


*  In  thus  living  disconnected  with  any  church,  he  follov/ed  the 
example  of  Milton  and  Cromwell.  Of  Pjlilton,  Toland  sajs  :  «•'  In 
his  early  days,  he  was  a  favorer  of  those  Protestants,  then  oi^probri- 
ously  called  by  the  name  of  t^uritans.  In  his  middle  years,  he  v.-as 
best  pleased  with  the  Independents  and  Anabaptists,  as  allowing  of 
more  liberty  than  others,  and  coming  nearest,  in  his  opinion,  to  the 
primitive  prn.ctice  ;  but  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  he  was  not  a 
professed  member  of  any  particular  sect  among  Christians;  he  fre- 
quented none  of  their  assemblies,  nor  made  use  of  their  peculiar  rites 
in  his  family."     Ivirncy's  Life  of  Milton,  p.  251. 


B28  M  E  IVt  O  I  R      OF 

lived  ill  that  neighborhood,  far  from  any  Christian 
teacher,  or  who  were  occasionally  at  Mr.  Smith's  trading- 
house.* 

He  did,  however,  endeavor  to  instruct  the  Indians. 
"  He  made,"  says  Mr.  Callender,  (p.  84)  "some  laudable 
attempts  to  instruct  them,  yet  he  was  much  discouraged, 
not  only  by  want  of  a  lawful  warrant,  or  an  immediate 
commission  to  be  an  apostle  to  them,  but  especially  by  (as 
he  thought)  the  insuperable  difficulty  of  preaching  Chris- 
tianity to  them  in  their  own  language,  with  any  propriety, 
without  inspiration."  On  this  subject,  he  speaks,  in  his 
"  Bloody  Tenet  more  Bloody."  He  says,  that  he  and  oth- 
ers have  found  '*  how  hard  it  is  for  any  man  to  attain  a  little 
propriety  of  their  language  in  common  things,  (so  as  to 
escape  derision  among  them)  in  many  years,  without 
abundant  of  conversing  with  them,  in  eating,  travelling  and 
lodging  with  them."  He  refers,  for  proof,  to  the  case  of 
Mr.  Eliot,  who,  notwithstanding  his  intimacy  with  the 
Indians,  could  not  always  make  himself  understood. t  Mr. 
Williams  seemed  to  think,  that  when  the  ministry  should 
be  restored,  the  gift  of  tongues  would  be  bestowed  on  mis- 
sionaries, to  qualify  them  for  their  work. 


*In  a  letter,  dated  May  6,  lGS-2,  he  requests  Governor  Bradstrect, 
of  Boston,  to  assist  him  in  printing  some  ^'  discourses,  which  (by 
many  tedious  journies)  I  have  liad  with  the  scattered  Enolish  at  Nar- 
raganset,  before  the  v/ar,  [Philip's  war,  of  1G75-GJ  and  since."  2 
His.  Col.viii.  p.  197. 

t  Mr.  Williams  says,  that  Mr.  Eliot  promised  a  suit  of  clothes  to 
un  old  Indian,  who,  not  understanding  him,  asked  another  Indian, 
what  Mr.  Eliot  said.  This  reminds  us  of  the  well  known  anecdote 
respecting  his  translation  of  the  Bible  : — '^  While  Eliot  was  engaged 
in  translating  the  Bible  into  the  Indian  language,  he  came  to  the  fol- 
lowing passage  in  Judges,  5  :  28  :  '•  The  mother  of  Sisera  looked  out 
at  the  window,  and  cried  through  the  lattice,"  &c.  Not  knowing  an 
Indian  word  to  signify  lattice,  he  applied  to  several  of  the  natives, 
and  endeavored  to  describe  to  them  what  a  lattice  resembled.  He 
described  it  as  frame  work,  netting,  wicker,  or  v/hatever  occurred  to 
him  as  illustrative,  when  they  gave  him  a  long,  barbarous  and  un- 
pronouncable  word,  as  are  most  of  the  words  in  their  language. 
Some  years  after,  when  he  had  learned  their  dialect  more  correctly, 
he  is  said  to  have  laughed  outriglit,  upon  finding  that  the  Indians  had 
given  him  the  true  term  for  eel-pot.  "  The  mother  of  Sisera  looked 
out  at  the  window,  and  cried  through  the  ccl~pot."  Bigelow's  History 
of  Natick,  p.  84.  This  anecdote  illustrates  the  difficulties  of  translat- 
ing, and  may  suggest  a  useful  caution  to  translators. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  329 

The  Narraganset  Indians  were  strongly  opposed  to  the 
Gospel.  It  is  said,  that  they  allowed  Mr.  Williams  to 
preach  to  them,  but  would  permit  no  one  else.  They 
loved  him,  but  they  rejected  his  doctrines.  His  Key  and 
his  letters  prove,  nevertheless,  that  his  benevolent  efforts 
were  not  entirely  in  vain,  and  authorize  the  hope,  that  at 
the  last  day,  he  may  share,  with  Eliot,  Mayhew  and  Brai- 
nerd,  the  blessing  of  ransomed  souls  from  among  the  un- 
happy native  tribes. 

Of  Mr.  Williams'  private  affairs,  we  know  little.  No- 
tices respecting  lands  occasionally  appear  on  the  records 
of  the  town.* 

His  public  spirit,  and  disposition  to  serve  his  fellow- 
citizens,  appear  on  various  occasions.  In  1666,  a  vote  of 
the  town  was  passed,  ''remitting  to  him  an  engagement 
made  by  him  to  the  town,  for  clapboards  and  nails  for  the 
building  of  a  town  house."  The  inference  is,  that  the 
project  which  he,  perhaps,  devised,  and  offered  to  promote, 
failed. 

The  following  letter  to  the  town,  relates  to  a  bridge.  On 
the  first  Monday  of  June,  1662,  the  town  had  ordered  a 
bridge  to  be  built  over  Moshassuck  river,  "  by  Thomas 
Olney  his  house,"  to  be  done  before  the  next  hay- 
time.     It  would    seem,  that   this   order   was  not  accom- 


*  ''  February  19,  1665.  Ordered,  That  Roger  Williams  shall  have 
his  first  choice,  after  William  Hawkins  and  John  Steeje,  of  the  fifty 
acres  of  land  on  the  east  side  of  the  north  line,  which  beginneth 
seven  miles  from  Fox's  Hill,  west." 

''  June  4, 1666.  It  is  granted  unto  Roger  Williams,  that  he  may 
change  three  acres  of  land  lying  in  the  neck,  and  take  it  up  some- 
where about  the  third  lake,  if  it  may,  with  conveniency,  without 
damage  to  the  highways,  or  other  men's  lands,  which  are  already  laid 
out." 

September  30,  1667,  he  was  allowed  to  change  three  acres  of  land, 
whicli  was  laid  out  to  him,  in  addition  to  his  house  lot,  and  take  it 
up  in  any  part  of  the  common  which  is  not  prohibited. 

May  2, 1667,  there  were  laid  out  to  him  "  fifty  acres  between  the 
seven  mile  and  the  four  line."  This  four  mile  line  seems  to  have 
been  the  original  line,  about  four  miles  west  from  Fox's  Hill.  Ad- 
ditional land  being  purchased  of  the  Indians,  the  seven  mile  line 
was  established,  June  4,  1660,  beginning  seven  miles  west  of  Fox's 
Hill,  and  running  north  to  Pawtucket  river,  and  south  to  Pawtuxet 
river. 


1330  M  E  M  O  I  R     OP 

plished,  and  that  the   following  letter   refers  to  the  same 
project : 

''  Providence,  10  Feh.  1667-8, 
"  Laving  friends  and  neighbors, 

"  Unto  this  day,  it  pleased  the  town  to  adjourn  for  the 
■answering  of  the  bill  for  the  bridge  and  others,  I  have 
conferred  with  Shadrach  Manton  and  Nathaniel  Water- 
man, about  their  proposal,  aiid  their  result  is,  that  they 
xannot  obtain  such  a  number  as  will  join  with  them,  to 
undertake  the  bridge  upon  the  hopes  of  meadow.  I  am, 
therefore,  bold,  after  so  many  anchors  come  home,  and  so 
"much  trouble  and  long  debates  and  deliberations,  to  offer, 
that  if  you  please,  I  v/ill,  with  God's  help,  take  this  bridge 
unto  my  care,  by  that  moderate  toll  of  strangers  of  all  sorts, 
which  hath  been  mentioned ;  w^ill  maintain  it  so  long  as  it 
pleaseth  God  that  I  live  in  this  town. 

"  2.  The  town  shall  be  free  from  all  toll,  only  I  desire 
one  day's  work  of  one  man  in  a  year  from  every  family,  but 
from  those  that  have  teams,  and  have  much  use  of  the 
bridge,  one  day's  work  of  a  man  and  team,  and  of  those 
that  have  less  use,  half  a  day. 

"  3.  I  shall  join  with  any  of  the  town,  more  or  few, 
•who  will  venture  their  labor  with  me  for  the  gaining  of 
meadow. 

*'  4.  I  promise,  if  it  please  God,  that  I  gain  meadow  in 
equal  value  to  the  town's  yearly  help,  I  shall  then  release 
that. 

"5.  I  desire,  if  it  please  God  to  be  with  me,  to  go 
through  such  a  charge  and  trouble  as  will  be  to  bring  this 
to  a  settled  way,  and  then  suddenly  to  take  me  from  hence, 
I  desire  that  before  another,  my  wife  and  children,  if  they 
desire  it,  may  engage  in  my  stead  to  these  conditions. 

''  6.  If  the  town  please  to  consent,  I  desire  that  one  of 
yourselves  be  nominated,  to  join  with  the  clerk  to  draw  up 
the  writing.  '  R.  W." 

It  does  not  appear,  whether  the  bridge  was  built,  at  this 
time,  or  not.  In  February,  1711-12,  Mr.  Daniel  Abbot 
was  sent  as  an  agent  to  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  to 
solicit  aid  in  building  "three  great  bridges,  upon  the  road 
leading  from  Connecticut  toward  Boston,  viz.  one  at  Paw- 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  331 

tuxet  Falls,    one   at  Weybosset   in  Providence,*   and   the 
other  over  Pawtucket  river." 

Mr.  Williams  omitted  no  opportunity  of  serving  the  In- 
dians. The  following  letter  was  written,  apparently,  to  the 
government  of  Massachusetts  :. 

'^  Providence,  Itli  of  May,  I6G8,  (50  called.) 
"  I  humbly  offer  to  consideration  my  long  and  constant 
experience,  since  it  pleased  God  to  bring  me  unto  these- 
parts,  as  to  the  Narraganset  and  Nipmuck  people. 

"  First,  that  all  the  Nipmucks  were^  unquestionably ,= 
subject  to  the  Narraganset  sachems,  and,  in  a  special  man- 
ner to  Mexham,  the  son  of  Canonicus,  and  late  husband  to 
this  old  squaw  sachem,  now  only  surviving.  I  have  abun- 
dant and  daily  proof  of  it,  as  plain  and  clear  as  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Newbury  or  Ipswich,  &c.  are  subject  to  the 
government  of  the  Massachusetts  colony. 

"  2.  I  was  called  by  his  Majesty's  Commissioners  to  tes- 
tify in  a  like  case  between  Philip  and  the  Plymouth  In- 
dians, on  the  one  party,  and  the  Narragansets  on  the 
other,  and  it  pleased  the  committee  to  declare,  that  the 
King  had  not  given  them  any  commission  to  niter  the  In- 
dians' lav/s  and  customs,  which  they  observed  amongst 
themselves  :  most  of  which,   although  they  are,  like  them- 

*John  Howland,  Esq.  says:  "I  think  there  must  have  been  a 
bridge  at  Weybosset  before  1712."  Perhaps  the  bridge  ordered  to  be 
built  over  Mosha«suck  river,  inl662,  a.nd  to  which  Mr.  Wilhams'  let- 
ter may  refer,  was  intended  to  be  somewhere  between  the  present 
Great  Bridge  and  Smith's  Bridge,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  access 
to  the  natural  meadows  at  the  head  of  the  cove.  The  mention  of 
'•'  hay  time,"  and  the  references  of  Mr.  Williams  to  the  ■•  hopes  of 
meadow,"  may  strengthen  this  supposition.  Mr.  Hov/land  says,  ''  I 
have  frequentfy  been  told  by  Nathan  Waterman,  that  teams  and  men 
on  horseback  used  to  cross  the  river  (before  his  day)  across  the  clam 
bed,  opposite  Ancfell's  land  (at  low  tide)  and  land  somewhere  on  the 
western  shore.  The  Thoma.3  Olney  lot  was  where  the  Knight  Dex- 
ter tavern  now  is,  and  Angeil's  v\fas  the  next  south,  including  part  of 
the  Baptist  meeting-house  lot,  and  Steeple  street.  In  front  of  this,, 
lay  the  shoal  place,  called  the  clam-bed."  May  14, 1660,  in  a  petition 
of  the  town  to  the  General  A-ssembly,  against  an  assessment  on  the 
town  of  thirty  pounds,  to  build  a  prison  at  Newport,  the  tovrn  said, 
that  they  had  just  spent  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  in  building  a 
bridge."  April  27,  1663,  George  Sheppard  gave  all  his  lands  vv^est 
of  seven  mile  line  to  the  town,  for  '■•  maintaining  a  bridge  at  Weybos- 
set." 


332  MEMOIR     OF 

selves,  barbarous,  yet  in  the  case  of  their  mournings,  they 
are  more  humane,  and  it  seems  to  be  more  inhumane  in 
those  that  professed  subjection  to  this  the  very  last  year, 
under  some  kind  of  feigned  protection  of  the  English,  to 
be  singing  and  dancing,  drinking,  &,c.  while  the  rest  were 
lamenting  their  sachems'  deaths. 

"  I  abhor  most  of  their  customs  ;  I  know  they  are  bar- 
barous. I  respect  not  one  party  more  than  the  other,  but 
I  desire  to  witness  truth ;  and  as  I  desire  to  witness  against 
oppression,  so,  also,  against  the  slighting  of  civil,  yea,  of 
barbarous  order  and  government,  as  respecting  every 
shadow  of  God's  gracious  appointments. 

"  This  I  humbly  offer,  as  in  the  holv  presence  of  God. 

ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

The  following  letter*  gives  us  a  view  of  some  of  the 
trials  which  Mr.  Williams  suffered  : 

"  For  John  Whipple,  jun.  these. 
"  Neighbor  Whipple, 
"  I  kindly  thank  you,  that  you  so  far  have  regarded  my 
lines  as  to  return  me  your  thoughts,  whether  sweet  or  sour  I 
desire  not  to  mind.  I  humbly  hope,  that  as  you  shall 
never  find  me  self-conceited  nor  self-seeking,  so,  as  to 
others,  not  pragmatical  and  a  busy-body  as  you  insinuate. 
My  study  is  to  be  swift  to  hear,  and  slow  to  speak,  and  I 
could  tell  you  of  five  or  six  grounds  (it  may  be  more)  why 
I  give  this  my  testimony  against  this  unrighteous  and  mon- 
strous proceeding  of  Christian  brethren  helping  to  hale  one 
another  before  the  world,  whose  song  was  lately  and 
loudly  sung  in  my  ears,  viz.  the  world  would  be  quiet 
enough,  were  it  not  for  these  holy  brethren,  their  divisions 
and  contentions.  The  last  night,  Shadrach  Manton  told 
me  that  I  had  spoken  bad  words  of  Gregory  Dexter  (though 
Shadrach  deals  more  ingenuously  than  yourself  saying  tlie 
same  thing,  for  he  tells  me  wherein,)  viz.  that  I  said  he 
makes  a  fool  of  his  conscience.  I  told  him  I  said  so,  and 
I  think  to  our  neighbor  Dexter  himself ;  for  I  believe  he 
might  as  well  be  moderator  or  general  deputy  or  general 

*  R.  I.  Lit,  R'<p.  vol,  i.  pp.  038-640. 


ROGER   WILLIAMS.  333 

assistant,  as  go  so  far  as  he  goes,  in  many  particulars ;  but 
what  if  I  or  my  conscience  be  a  fool,  yet  it  is  commenda- 
ble and  admirable  in  him,  that  being  a  man  of  education, 
and  of  a  noble  calling,  and  versed  in  militaries,  that  his 
conscience  forced  him  to  be  such  a  child  in  his  own  house, 
when  W.  Har.  strained  for  the  rate  (which  I  approve  of)  with 
such  imperious  insulting  over  his  conscience,  which  all  con- 
scientious men  will  abhor  to  hear  of  However,  I  commend 
that  man,  whether  Jew,  or  Turk,  or  Papist,  or  whoever,  that 
steers  no  otherwise  than  his  conscience  dares,  till  his  con- 
science tells  him  that  God  gives  him  a  greater  latitude.  For, 
neighbor,  you  shall  find  it  rare  to  meet  with  men  of  con- 
science, men  that  for  fear  and  love  of  God  dare  not  lie,  nor 
be  drunk,  nor  be  contentious,  nor  steal,  nor  be  covet- 
ous, nor  voluptuous,  nor  ambitious,  nor  lazy-bodies,  nor 
busy-bodies,  nor  dare  displease  God  by  omitting  either 
service  or  suffering,  though  of  reproach,  imprisonment, 
banishment  and  death,  because  of  the  fear  and  love  of 
God. 

"If  W.  Wickenden  received  a  beast  of  W.  Field,  for 
ground  of  the  same  hold,  I  knew  it  not,  and  so  spake  the 
truth,  as  I  understood  it.  2.  Though  I  have  not  spoke 
with  him,  yet  I  hear  it  was  not  of  that  hold  or  tenure,  for 
we  have  had  four  sorts  of  bounds  at  least. 

"First,  the  grant  of  as  large  accommodations  as  any 
English  in  New-England  had.  This  the  sachems  always 
promised  me,  and  they  had  cause,  for  I  was  as  a  right  hand 
unto  them,  to  my  great  cost  and  travail.  Hence  I  was 
sure  of  the  Toceheunguanit  meadows,  and  what  could  with 
any  show  of  reason  have  been  desired  ;  but  some,  (that  never 
did  this  town  nor  colony  good,  and,  it  is  feared,  never  will,) 
cried  out,  when  Roger  Williams  had  laid  himself  down  as 
a  stone  in  the  dust,  for  after-comers  to  step  on  in  town  and 
colony,  'Who  is  Roger  Williams?  We  know  the  Indians 
and  the  sachems  as  well  as  he.  We  will  trust  Roger  Wil- 
liams no  longer.  We  will  have  our  bounds  confirmed  us 
under  the  sachems'  hands  before  us.' 

"2.  Hence  arose,  to  my  soul  cutting  and  grief,  the 
second  sort  of  bounds,  viz.  the  bounds  set  under  the  hands 
of  those  great  sachems  Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  and 
were  set  so  short  (as  to  Mashapaug  and  Pawtucket,  and  at 
that  time,)  because  they  would  not  intrench  upon  the  In- 
29 


834  MEMOIR     OP 

dians  inhabiting  round  about  us,  for  the  prevention  of  strife 
between  us. 

"  The  third  sort  of  bounds  were  of  favor  and  grace,  in- 
vented, as  I  think,  and  prosecuted  by  that  noble  spirit, 
now  with  God,  Chad  Brown.  Presuming  upon  the  sachems' 
grant  to  me,  they  exceeded  the  letter  of  the  sachems'  deed, 
so  far  as  reasonably  they  judged,  and  this  with  promise  of 
satisfaction  to  any  native  who  should  reasonably  desire  it. 
In  this  third  sort  of  bounds,  lay  this  piece  of  meadow 
hard  by  Captain  Fenner's  ground,  which,  with  two  hogs, 
William  Wickenden  gave  to  W.  Field  for  a  small  beast, 
&c. 

"  Beside  these  three  sort  of  bounds,  there  arose  a  fourth, 
like  the  fourth  beast  in  Daniel,  exceeding  dreadful  and 
terrible,  unto  which  the  Spirit  of  God  gave  no  name  nor 
bounds,  nor  can  we  in  the  first  rise  of  ours,  only  boundless 
bounds,  or  a  monstrous  beast,  above  all  other  beasts  or 
monsters.  Now,  as  from  this  fourth  wild  beast  in  Daniel, 
in  the  greater  world,  have  arisen  all  the  storms  and  tem- 
pests, factions  and  divisions,  in  our  little  world  amongst  us, 
and  what  the  tearing  consequences  yet  will  be,  is  only 
known  to  the  Most  Holy  and  Only  Wise. 

"  You  conclude  with  your  innocence  and  patience  under 
my  clamorous  tongue,  but  I  pray  you  not  to  forget  that 
there  are  two  basins.  David  had  one,  Pilate  another. 
David  washed  his  hands  in  innocence,  and  so  did  Pilate, 
and  so  do  all  parties,  all  the  w^orld  over.  As  to  inno- 
cence, my  former  paper  saith  something.  As  to  patience, 
how  can  you  say  you  are  patient  under  my  clamorous 
tongue,  when  that  very  speech  is  most  impatient  and  un- 
christian ?  My  clamor  and  crying  shall  be  to  God  and 
men  (I  hope  without  revenge  or  wrath)  but  for  a  little 
ease,  and  that  yourselves,  and  they  that  scorn  and  hate  me 
most,  may,  if  the  Eternal  please,  find  cooling  in  that  hot, 
eternal  day  that  is  near  approaching.  This  shall  be  the 
continual  clamor  or  cry  of 

''  Your  unworthy 

friend  and  neighbor, 

''R.  W. 

''  Providence,  Qth  July,   1669,  {so  called.^ 

This  letter  is  interesting  for  several  reasons.     The  refer- 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  335 

ence  to  Mr.  Dexter's  refusal  to  pay  his  taxes,  from  consci- 
entious scruples,  shows,  that  Mr.  Williams  accurately  dis- 
criminated between  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  a  perver- 
sion of  those  rights.  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  too,  that  Mr. 
Williams  condemned  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Dexter,  though 
an  intimate  friend  ;  and  approved,  in  part,  at  least,  that  of 
Mr.  Harris,  though  a  bitter  hostility  existed  between  them 


336  MEMOIR     OF 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


Controversy  with  the  Quakers — Phihp's  war — letters — Mr.  Williams' 
death. 

We  will  now  give  a  brief  account  of  Mr.  Williams'  con- 
troversy with  the  duakers.  It  was  an  unhappy  strife,  in 
which  all  parties  displayed  more  zeal  than  Christian  meek- 
ness or  charity.  It  was  especially  unfortunate  for  Mr. 
Williams,  for  it  plunged  him,  in  his  old  age,  into  a  dispute, 
in  which  he  could  not  hope  to  effect  much  good,  and  which 
was  certain  to  draw  upon  him  much  odium. 

His  motives,  however,  ought  to  be  clearly  understood. 
The  colony  of  Rhode-Island  had  incurred  reproach  among 
the  other  colonies,  because  she  refused  to  join  in  a  perse- 
cution of  the  Quakers.  Rhode-Island  was  the  refuge  of 
these  persons,  some  of  the  magistrates,  at  this  time,  were 
of  that  sect,  and  it  was  asserted,  that  the  public  feeling  in 
Rhode-Island  was  friendly  to  their  doctrines  and  practices. 
Mr.  Williams  declares,  in  his  book  on  the  controversy,  that 
he  was  induced  to  engage  in  a  dispute  with  them,  in  order 
to  bear  public  testimony,  that  while  he  was  decidedly  op- 
posed to  any  measures  which  tended  to  impair  liberty  of 
conscience,  he  nevertheless  disapproved  the  principles  of 
the  Quakers.*  He  says,  that  when  he  met  them  at  New- 
port, on  the  first  day  of  the  dispute,  "  I  took  my  seat  at  the 
other  end  of  the  house  opposite  to  them,  and  began  telling 
them,  that  the  Most  High  was  my  witness,  that  not  out  of 
any  prejudice  against,  or  disrespect  to,  the  persons  of  the 
Quakers,  many  of  whom  I  knew  and  did  love  and  honor, 
nor  any  foolish  passion  of  pride   or  boldness,  for  I  desired 

*''  I  had  in  mine  eye  the  vindicating  of  this  colony  for  receiving 
of  such  persons  whom  others  would  not.  We  suffer  for  their  sakes, 
and  are  accounted  their  abettors.  That,  therefore,  together  with  the 
improvement  of  our  hberties,  which  the  God  of  heaven  and  our 
King's  Majesty  have  graciously  given,  I  might  give  a  public  testi- 
mony against  their  opinions,  in  such  a  way  and  exercise,  I  judged  it 
incumbent  upon  my  spirit  and  conscience  to  do  it  (in  some  regards) 
more  than  mos't  in  the  colony."     p.  26. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  337 

to  be  sensible  of  my  many  decays  of  my  house  of  clay,  and 
other  ways ;  nor  any  earthly  or  worldly  ends  I  had,  that 
occasioned  this  trouble  to  myself  and  them."     p.  26. 

Candor  must  admit,  that  his  motives  were  laudable — a 
zeal  for  the  honor  of  the  colony,  and  for  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  truth.  He  accordingly  took  occasion,  when  the 
celebrated  George  Fox*  was  in  Rhode-Island,  to  propose  a 
public  discussion,  at  Newport  and  Providence,  in  which 
the  principles  of  the  Quakers  should  be  examined,  in  a 
friendly  debate. 

The  challenge  was  in  these  words : 

"  To  George  Fox,  or  any  other  of  my  countrymen  at 
Newport,  who  say  they  are  the  apostles  and  messengers  of 
Christ  Jesus.  In  humble  confidence  of  the  help  of  the 
Most  High,  I  offer  to  maintain,  in  public,  against  all  comers, 
these  fourteen  propositions  following,  to  wit :  the  first  seven 
at  Newport,  and  the  other  seven  at  Providence.  For  the 
time  when,  I  refer  it  to  George  Fox  and  his  friends,  at 
Newport." 

Such  public  debates  were  not  uncommon  during  the  re- 
formation, in  Germany,  and  in  later  times,  in  England. 
They  have  been  held,  in  our  own  days,  but  their  effect  has 
seldom  been  beneficial  to  the  cause  of  truth.  They  are 
more  adapted  to  irritate  than  to  convince.  Few  men  have 
sufficient  self-command  to  preserve  their  temper,  in  a  con- 
troversy conducted  through  the  press.  When  brought  into 
personal  contact,  before  a  large  assembly,  the  meekest  men 
could  scarcely  avoid  being  chafed  and  petulant.  Such 
contests  are  like  the  battles  of  old  times,  when  the  spear 
or  the  sword  was  the  chief  weapon,  and  the  combatants, 


*  This  remarkable  man  was  born  at  Drayton,  in  Leicestershire,  in 
1624.  He  was  placed  as  an  apprentice  to  a  grazier,  but.  at  the  age 
of  nineteen,  he  thought  himself  called  to  forsake  every  thing  else, 
and  devote  himself  to  religion.  In  1C48,  he  began  to  preach,  and 
adopted  the  peculiar  language  and  manners  which  have  distinguish- 
ed his  followers.  He  incurred  persecution,  was  often  imprisoned, 
and  treated  with  great  severity.  In  16G9,  he  married, and  soon  after 
visited  America,  where  he  remained  two  years,  and  made  many 
proselytes.  He  returned  to  England,  and  after  many  sufferings,  he 
died  in  1G90,  in  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age.  His  works  form 
three  folio  volumes.  "  He  was  undoubtedly  a  man  of  strong  natural 
parts,  and  William  Penn  speaks  in  high  teims  of  his  meekness, 
humility  and  temperance." — Encj?.  Amer.  art.  George  Fox. 

29* 


338  M  E  ftl  O  I  R     OF 

being  brought  hand  to  hand,  fought  with  embittered  ran- 
cor and  dreadful  carnage.  Modern  battles,  in  which  the 
parties  are  at  a  greater  distance,  are  less  sanguinary.  The 
result  of  these  disputes,  moreover,  is  as  uncertain  a  test  of 
truth  and  justice,  as  the  termination  of  the  ancient  appeals 
to  personal  combat.  Stronger  lungs  and  greater  self-conceit 
have  sometimes  enabled  the  advocate  of  error  to  win  the 
victory. 

The  fourteen  propositions  of  Mr.  Williams  we  shall  not 
quote.  They  affirmed,  that  the  principles  of  the  Quakers 
were  unscriptural  and  pernicious. 

Mr.  Williams  sent  these  propositions  to  Newport,  but 
George  Fox  left  the  town  for  England,  without  seeing 
them.  Mr.  Williams  asserted,  that  Fox  departed  in  order 
to  avoid  the  debate,  and  he  condescended  to  a  pun  on 
"  George  Fox's  slily  departing."  This  insinuation  was  un- 
founded and  unjustifiable.  Fox  unceremoniously  charged 
him  with  lying,  but  this  gross  accusation  cannot  be  admit- 
ted. Mr.  Williams  undoubtedly  thought  his  assertion 
true,*  though  he  ought  not  to  have  made  it  without  better 
authority. 

The  debate  commenced,  however,  at  Newport,  on  the 
9th  of  August,  ]  672.  Mr.  Williams  rowed,  in  a  boat,  to 
Newport,  thirty  miles,  a  feat  which  few  men  of  seventy- 
three  years  could  perform,  in  these  degenerate  days.  He 
arrived  at  Newport  about  midnight. t  The  next  day  the  de- 
bate commenced,  in  the  Quaker  meeting-house.  John 
Stubs,  John  Burnyeat  and  William  Edmundson  were  the 
champions  opposed  to  him.  He  speaks  of  the  two  former 
as  able  and  learned  men.  The  debate  continued  three 
days.  It  was,  according  to  his  account,  a  very  disorderly 
scene.  There  was  no  moderator,  and  Mr.  AVilliams  com- 
plains of  frequent  and  rude  interruptions.  His  health  was 
feeble,  and  he  says,  that,   on   the   morning  of  the   second 


*  The  letters  were  gent,  through  some  friends  of  Mr.  Fox,  to  the  Dep- 
uty Governor  Cranston.  They  were  dated  July  13,  but  Mr.  Cranston 
did  not  receive  them  till  the  2Gth,  which,  as  he  said,  excited  his  sur- 
prise. There  was  some  room  for  suspicion,  that  the  letters  were 
purposely  concealed  till  Mr.  Fox  had  gone. 

t  '•  God  graciously  assisted  me  in  rowing  all  day,  with  my  old 
bones,  so  that  I  got  to  Newport  toward  the  midnight  before  the 
morning  appointed."     p.  24. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  339 

day,  "  I  heartily  wished  that  I  might  rather  have  kept  my 
bed,  than  have  gone  forth  to  a  whole  day's  fresh  disputes." 
His  brother,  Robert  Williams,  then  a  schoolmaster  in 
Newport,  attempted  to  aid  him,  but  his  interferenee  was 
not  permitted  by  his  opponents.  Mr.  Williams'  demeanor, 
during  the  controversy,  was,  apparently,  patient  and  col- 
lected. The  debate  was  renewed  at  Providence  on  the 
17th,  and  continued  one  day,  when  it  was  terminated, 
without  producing  any  change  of  opinion  on  either  side. 

Mr.  Williams  wrote  an  account  of  this  dispute,  in  a  large 
book,  of  327  pages.  It  was  entitled,  "  George  Fox  digged 
out  of  his  Burrowes,"  &.c.,  in  allusion  to  a  book  which 
Fox  and  his  friend  Edward  Burrowes  (or  Burrough)  had 
written.  Of  Mr.  Williams'  book  we  shall  give  a  further 
account.  It  is  able  and  acute,  but  it  is  disfigured  by  much 
severe  language. 

Fox  and  Burnyeat  wrote  a  reply,  entitled,  "  A  New- 
England  Firebrand  Quenched,"  in  which  they  railed  at 
Mr.  Williams,  in  a  coarse  and  bitter  style.* 

The  following  letter  of  Mr.  Williams  alludes  to  the  pub- 
lication of  his  book  against  Fox  :  t 

"  My  dear  friend,  Samuel  Hubbard, 
"  To  yourself  and  aged  companion,  my  loving  respects  in 
the  Lord  Jesus,  who  ought  to  be  our  hope  of  glory,  begun 
in  this  life,  and  enjoyed  to  all  eternity.     I   have  herein  re- 

*  In  the  General  Assembly,  in  1672,  it  was  voted,  that  the  depu- 
ties should  receive  two  shillings  per  day.  A  law  was  passed,  ex- 
empting from  milita^y  duty  persons  who  had  conscientious  scruples. 
On  September  2,  1673,  it  was  enacted,  that  every  person  who  sold 
liquor,  so  that  any  one  became  drunk,  or  who  kept  a  gaming  house, 
should  be  fined  six  shillings.  Constables  were  appointed  to  watch 
on  the  *' first  day  of  the  week"  against  all  '•' deboystness."  There 
was,  about  this  time,  a  trial  of  an  Indian,  by  a  jury,  half  of  whom 
were  Indians.  In  1679,  a  fine  of  five  shillings  was  imposed  for  em- 
ploying an  Indian  or  other  servant  on  the  first  day  ;  and  the  same 
fine,  or  sitting  in  the  stocks  three  hours,  for  gaming,  playing,  shoot- 
ing, or  sitting  drinking  in  an  alehouse  "  more  than  necessity  re- 
quireth,"  on  the  first  day.  It  does  not  appear,  that  there  was  any 
rule,  by  which  to  judge  of  the  ''necessity."  The  doctrine  of  total 
abstinence  was  then  unknown. 

On  the  11th  of  March,  1C74-5,  Mr.  Williams  acknowledged  the 
receipt  from  Benjamin  Hernden  of  six  shillings,  ninepence,  making 
up  eleven  pounds,  " 
John  Clawson's." 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  510. 


340  MEMOIR     OF 

turned  your  little,  yet  great  remembrance  of  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  to  yourself  and  your  son,  late  departed.  I  praise 
the  Lord  for  your  humble  kissing  of  his  holy  rod,  and  ac- 
knowledging his  just  and  righteous,  together  with  his 
gracious  and  merciful,  dispensation  to  you.  I  rejoice,  also, 
to  read  your  heavenly  desires  and  endeavors,  that  your 
trials  may  be  gain  to  your  own  souls,  and  the  souls  of  the 
youth  of  the  place,  and  all  of  us.  You  are  not  unwilling, 
I  judge,  that  I  deal  plainly  and  friendly  with  you.  After 
all  that  I  have  seen  and  read  and  compared  about  the  sev- 
enth day,  (and  I  have  earnestly  and  carefully  read  and 
weighed  all  I  could  come  at  in  God's  holy  presence)  I  can- 
not be  removed  from  Calvin's  mind,  and  indeed  Paul's 
mind.  Col.  ii.  that  all  those  sabbaths  of  seven  days  were 
figures,  types  and  shadows,  and  forerunners  of  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  the  change  is  made  from  the  remembrance 
of  the  first  creation,  and  that  (figurative)  rest  on  the  sev- 
enth day,  to  the  remembrance  of  the  second  creation  on 
the  first,  on  which  our  Lord  arose  conqueror  from  the 
dead.  Accordingly,  I  have  read  many,  but  see  no  satisfy- 
ing answer  to  those  three  Scriptures,  chiefly  Acts  20,  1 
Cor.  16,  Rev.  1,  in  conscience  to  which  I  make  some  poor 
conscience  to  God  as  to  the  rest  day.  As  for  thoughts  for 
England,  I  humbly  hope  the  Lord  hath  hewed  me  to  write 
a  large  narrative  of  all  those  four  days'  agitation  between 
the  Quakers  and  myself;  if  it  please  God  I  cannot  get  it 
printed  in  New-England,  I  have  great  thoughts  and  pur- 
poses for  old.  My  age,  lameness,  and  many  other  weak- 
nesses, and  the  dreadful  hand  of  God  at  sea,  calls  for  deep 
consideration.  What  God  may  please  to  bring  forth  in  the 
spring,  his  holy  wisdom  knows.  If  he  please  to  bring  to 
an  absolute  purpose,  I  will  send  you  word,  and  my  dear 
friend,  Obadiah  Holmes,  who  sent  me  a  message  to  the 
same  purpose.  At  present,  I  pray  salute  respectively  Mr. 
John  Clarke  and  his  brothers,  Mr.  Tory,  Mr.  Edes,  Ed- 
ward Smith,  William  Hiscox,  Stephen  Mumford,  and  other 
friends,  whose  preservation,  of  the  island,  and  this  country, 
I  humbly  beg  of  the  Father  of  Mercies,  in  whom  I  am 
yours  unworthy,  R.  W." 

The  calamitous  and  decisive  war  with  Philip  claims  our 
notice.     This  chief,  whose  Indian  name  was  Metacom, 


ROGER     WILLIAMS,  341 

but  who  received  the  name  of  Philip  from  the  English,  was 
the  second  son  of  Massassoit,  the  principal  sachem  of  the 
Pokanokets.  Philip  succeeded  his  brother  Alexander,  who 
died  in  1662,  in  consequence,  it  has  been  supposed,  of  his 
shame  and  resentment  for  what  he  thought  an  insult  from 
the  whites.  Philip  was  an  able  and  ambitious  chief  He 
saw  the  increasing  power  of  the  colonists,  and  clearly  per- 
ceived, that  the  utter  extinction  of  the  Indians  would  be 
the  result,  unless  the  progress  of  the  whites  could  be  ar- 
rested. It  is  said,  however,  that  he  was  averse  to  com- 
mencing hostilities,  being  aware  that  the  colonists  were  too 
powerful  to  be  successfully  resisted  ;*  but  he  was  forced 
into  the  war  by  the  ardor  of  his  young  warriors.  All  the 
Indian  tribes  remained  quiet,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
hostile  indications,  for  nearly  forty  years  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Pequods. 

Rumors  of  intended  war  on  the  part  of  Philip  were  cir- 
culated in  1671.  The  Governor  of  Plymouth,  and  several 
other  gentlemen  from  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts,  invited 
Philip  to  meet  them  at  Taunton ;  but  he  refused  to  come, 
till,  it  is  said,f  Mr.  Williams  and  Mr.  Brown,  of  Swansea, 
were  employed  as  mediators.  Mr.  Williams'  agency  was, 
as  usual,  successful,  and  Philip  met  the  Governor,  dis- 
claimed all  hostile  designs,  promised  future  fidelity,  and 
surrendered  about  seventy  guns,  as  a  proof  of  his  sincerity. 
The  war  was  thus  delayed  four  years. 

The  interval  was,  it  appears,  employed  by  Philip  in 
making  preparations  for  war.  He  endeavored  to  concert 
a  general  league  among  the  Indians  in  New-England,  and 
it  is  said,  that  most  of  the  tribes  entered  into  his  plans. 
The  Narragansets,  especially,  who  still  nourished  a  desire 
of  vengeance  for  the  treacherous  murder,  as  they  viewed 
it,  of  their  sachem,  Miantinomo,  engaged  to  aid  Philip, 
with  a  force  of  four  thousand  warriors,  in  the  spring  of 
1676.J: 


*  Callender,  p.  73.  t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  418. 

t  Hubbard's  Narrative,  p.  55,  edition  of  1775.  Hutchinson,  vol.  i. 
p.  40G,  says,  that  the  Narragansets,  in  1675,  were  supposed  to  have 
2000  warriors.  Mr.  Callender,  p.  75,  thinks  that  Hubbard's  and 
Hutchinson's  accounts  may  be  reconciled,  by  supposing  that  the  four 
thousand  warriors  to  be  raised  by  the  Narragansets  included  other 
Indians  within  their  influence. 


342  MEMOIR     OF 

But,  for  some  cause,  hostilities  commenced  before  the 
time  appointed.  Philip  is  supposed  to  have  been  urged  to 
begin  the  war,  by  the  death  of  John  Sassamon,  an  Indian, 
who  had  served  Philip  as  a  secretary.  He  communicated 
to  the  English  the  designs  of  Philip,  and  he  was  soon  after 
found  murdered.  Three  Indians,  who  were  believed  to  be 
his  murderers,  were  tried  and  executed,  at  Plymouth,  in 
June,  1675.  Philip,  who  was  thought  to  be  implicated  in 
the  murder,  immediately  commenced  hostilities,  by  attack- 
ing the  town  of  Swansea,  on  the  24th  of  June.  The  war, 
being  commenced,  was  prosecuted  with  great  fury,  many 
towns  were  burnt,  and  many  of  the  inhabitants  killed.  It 
was  a  mercy  to  the  whites,  that  the  Indians  had  not  fully 
matured  their  plans  and  begun  the  contest  in  concert. 
The  Narragansets  renewed  their  league  with  the  colonists,* 
though  they  afterwards  joined  in  the  war  against  them. 

The  following  letter  of  Mr.  Williams  to  Governor  Lev- 
erett,  of  Massachusetts,  is  very  interesting  and  character- 
istic : 

"  To  the  Governor  at  Boston,  present.  Per  neighbor 
Samuel  Whiffel. 

''^Providence,  11,  8,  75,  {so  accounted.) 
"  Sir, 

"  Yours  of  the  7th  I  gladly  and  thankfully  received,  and 
humbly  desire  to  praise  that  Most  High  and  Holy  Hand,  in- 
visible and  only  wise,  who  casts  you  down,  by  so  many 
public  and  personal  trials,  and  lifts  you  up  again  v/ith  any 
{liicida  intervcdla)  mitigations  and  refreshments.  Ah  in- 
ferno nullci  redemptio :  from  the  grave  and  hell  no  return. 
Here,  like  Noah's  dove,  we  have  our  checker  work,  blacks 
and  whites  come  out  and  go  into  the  ark,  out  and  in  again 
till  the  last,  whom  we  never  see  back  again. 

"  The  business  of  the  day  in  New-England  is  not  only  to 
keep  ourselves  from  murdering,  our  houses,  barns,  &c. 
from  firing,  to  destroy  and  cut  off  the  barbarians,  or  sub- 
due and  reduce  them,  but  our  main  and  principal  opus  did 
is,  to  listen  to  what  the  Eternal  speaketh  to  the  whole  ship, 
(the  country,  colonies,  towns,  &c.)  and  each  private  cabin, 
family,  person,  &c.  He  will  speak  peace  to  his  people ; 
therefore,  saith  David,  '  I  will  listen  to  what  Jehovah 
speaketh.'     Oliver,  in  straits  and  defeats,  especially  at  His- 

*  Callender,  p.  75. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  343 

paniola,  desired  all  to  speak  and  declare  freely  what  they 
thought  the  mind  of  God  was.  H.  Vane  (then  laid  by) 
wrote  his  discourse,  entitled  "A  Healing  Question,"  but  for 
touching  upon  (that  noli  me  iangere)  State  sins,  H.  Vane 
went  prisoner  to  Carisbrook  Castle,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Oh,  Sir,  I  humbly  subscribe  {ex  animo)  to  your  short  and 
long  prayer,  in  your  letter.  The  Lord  keep  us  from  our 
own  deceivings.  I  know  there  have  been,  and  are,  many 
precious  and  excellent  spirits  amongst  you,  (if  you  take 
flight  before  me,  I  will  then  say  you  are  one  of  them,  with- 
out daubing,)  but  rehus  sic  stantibus,  as  the  wind  blows, 
the  united  colonies  dare  not  permit,  Candida  ct  bona  fide, 
two  dangerous  (supposed)  enemies  :  1.  dissenting  and  non- 
conforming worshippers,  and  2.  liberty  of  free  (really  free) 
disputes,  debates,  writing,  printing,  fcc. ;  the  Most  High 
hath  begun  and  given  some  taste  of  these  two  dainties  in 
some  parts,  and  will  more  and  more  advance  them  when 
(as  Luther  and  Erasmus  to  the  Emperor,  Charles  V.,  and 
the  Duke  of  Saxony,)  those  two  gods  are  famished,  the 
Pope's  crown  and  the  Monks'  bellies.  The  same  Luther 
was  wont  to  say,  that  every  man  had  a  pope  in  his  belly, 
and  Calvin  expressly  wrote  to  Melancthon,  that  Luther 
made  himself  another  Pope;  yet,  which  of  us  will  not  say, 
Jeremiah,  thou  liest,  when  he  tells  us  (and  from  God)  we 
must  not  go  down  to  Egypt  ? 

"  Sir,  I  use  a  bolder  pen  to  your  noble  spirit  than  to  many, 
because  the  Father  of  Lights  hath  shown  your  soul  more 
of  the  mysteries  of  iniquity  than  other  excellent  heads  and 
hearts  dream  of,  and  because,  whatever  you  or  I  be  in 
other  respects,  yet  in  this  you  will  act  a  pope,  and  grant 
me  your  love,  pardon  and  indulgence. 

"  Sir,  since  the  doleful  news  from  Springfield,  here  it  is 
said  that  Philip,  with  a  strong  body  of  many  hundred  cut- 
throats, steers  for  Providence  and  Seekonk,  some  say  for 
Norwich  and  Stonington,  and  some  say  your  forces  have 
had  a  loss  by  their  cutting  off  some  of  your  men,  in  their 
passing  over  a  river.  Fiat  voluntas  Dei,  there  I  humbly 
rest,  and  let  all  go  but  himself.  Yet,  Sir,  I  am  requested 
by  our  Capt.  Fenner  to  give  you  notice,  that  at  his  farm, 
in  the  woods,  he  had  it  from  a  native,  that  Philip's  great 
design  is  (among  all  other  possible  advantages  and  treach- 
eries) to  draw  C.  Mosely  and  others,  your  forces,  by  train- 


344  MEMOIR     OF 

ing  and  drilling  and  seeming  flights,  into  such  places  as 
are  full  of  long  grass,  flags,  sedge,  ^c.  and  then  inviron 
them  round  with  fire,  smoke  and  bullets.  Some  say  no 
wise  soldier  will  so  be  caught ;  but  as  I  told  the  young 
prince,  on  his  return  lately  from  you,  all  their  war  is  com- 
mootin  ;  they  have  commootined  our  houses,  our  cattle,  our 
heads,  ^c,  and  that  not  by  their  artillery,  but  our  weapons  ; 
that  yet  they  were  so  cowardly,  that  they  have  not  taken 
one  poor  fort  from  us  in  all  the  country,  nor  won,  nor 
scarce  fought,  one  battle  since  the  beginning.  I  told  him 
and  his  men,  being  then  in  my  canoe,  with  his  men  with 
him,  that  Philip  was  his  cawkakinnamuck,  that  is,  looking 
glass.  He  was  deaf  to  all  advice,  and  now  was  overset, 
Cooshkowwawy,  and  catcht  at  every  part  of  the  country  to 
save  himself,  but  he  shall  never  get  ashore,  &l>c.  He 
answered  me  in  a  consenting,  considering  kind  of  way, 
Philip  Cooshkowwawy :  I  went  with  my  great  canoe  to 
help  him  over  from  Seekonk  (for  to  Providence  no  Indian 
comes)  to  Pawtuxet  side.  I  told  him  I  would  not  ask  him 
news,  for  I  knew  matters  were  private  ;  only  I  told  him  that 
if  he  were  false  to  his  engagements,  we  would  pursue  them 
with  a  winter's  war,  when  they  should  not,  as  musketoes 
and  rattlesnakes  in  warm  weather,  bite  us,  &c. 

"  Sir,  I  carried  him  and  Mr.  Smith  a  glass  of  wine,  but 
Mr.  Smith  not  coming,  I  gave  wine  and  glass  to  himself, 
and  a  bushel  of  apples  to  his  men,  and  being  therewith 
(as  beasts  are)  caught,  they  gave  me  leave  to  say  any 
thing,  acknowledged  loudly  your  great  kindness  in  Boston, 
and  mine,  and  yet  Capt.  Fenner  told  me  yesterday,  that  he 
thinks  they  will  prove  our  worst  enemies  at  last.  I  am 
between  fear  and  hope,  and  humbly  wait,  making  sure,  as 
Haselrig's  motto  was,  sure  of  my  anchor  in  heaven,  Tan- 
tum  in  Coelis,  only  in  heaven.  Sir,  there  I  long  to  meet 
you, 

*'  Your  most  unworthy, 

ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  To  Mrs.  Leverett,  and  other  honored  and  beloved 
friends,  humble  respects,  &c. 

"  Sir,  I  hope  your  men  fire  all  the  woods  before  them,&c. 

"  Sir,  I  pray  not  a  line  to  me,  except  on  necessary  bus- 
iness; only  give  me  leave  (as  you  do)  to  use  my  foolish 
boldness  to  visit  yourself,  as  I  have  occasion.  I  would  not 
add  to  your  troubles," 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  345 

The  war  occasioned  great  alarm  and  distress.  It  spread 
over  New-England,  and  threatened,  for  a  while,  the  de- 
struction of  the  colonies. 

Many  of  the  inhabitants  of  Providence  and  of  other 
towns  removed  to  Newport,  for  safety ;  but  a  considerable 
number  remained,  among  whom  was  Mr.  Williams,  though 
it  seems  his  wife  and  family  removed  to  the  island.* 

Mr.  Williams  was  very  active,  notwithstanding  his  age. 
He  accepted  a  military  commission,  and  the  title,  "  Captain 
Roger  Williams,"  appears  on  the  records.  It  certainly 
displayed  spirit  and  patriotism  in  a  man  of  seventy-seven 
years,  to  buckle  on  his  armor  for  the  defence  of  his  home 
and  his  fellow-citizens.  He  sent  the  following  proposition 
to  the  town  :  "  I  pray  the  town,  in  the  sense  of  the  late 
bloody  practices  of  the  natives,  to  give  leave  to  so  many  as 
can  agree  with  William  Field,  to  bestow  some  charge  upon 
fortifying  his  house,  for  security  to  women  and  children. 
Also  to  give  me  leave,  and  so  many  as  shall  agree,  to  put 
up  some  defence  on  the  hill,  between  the  mill  and  the 
highway,  for  the  like  safety  of  the  women  and  children  in 
that  part  of  the  town."  This  proposal  was  signed  by  eleven 
persons,  who  subscribed  various  sums,  to  defray  the  ex- 
pense. The  highest  subscription  was  two  pounds,  six  shil- 
lings, except  that  of  Mr.  Williams,  which  was  ten  pounds, 
though  we  may  presume  that  he  was  not  the  richest  man 
among  them. 

A  garrison  was  established  at  Providence,  by  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  w^ith  seven  men,  under  the  command  of 
Captain  Arthur  Fenner,  with  a  provision,  however,  that  it 
should  "  not  eclipse  Captain  Williams'  power  in  the  exercise 
of  the  train  bands  there." 

The  town  was  attacked  by  the  Indians,  on  the  29th  of 
March,  1676,  and  twenty-nine  houses  were  burnt,  among 
which  was  that,  in  which  the  records  of  the  town  were 


*The  following  memorandum  appears  on  the  records  of  Provi- 
dence, about  August  30, 1676,  after  the  death  of  Philip  : 

'•  By  God's  providence,  it  seasonably  came  to  pass,  that  Provi- 
dence Williams  brought  up  his  mother  from  Newport  in  his  sloop, 
and  cleared  the  town  by  his  vessel  of  all  the  Indians,  to  the  great 
peace  and  content  of  all  the  inhabitants."  The  Indians,  here  men- 
tioned, were  probably  prisoners. 

30 


346  MEMOIR      OF 

kept.  These  were  thrown  into  the  mill-pond,  and  after- 
wards recovered,  though  much  injured. 

It  is  said,  that  when  the  Indians  approached  Providence, 
Mr.  Williams  took  his  staff,  and  went  to  meet  them  on  the 
heights  north  of  the  cove.  He  remonstrated  with  the 
sachems,  and  warned  them  of  the  power  and  vengeance  of 
the  English.  "  Massachusetts,"  said  he,  "  can  raise  thous- 
ands of  men  at  this  moment,  and  if  you  kill  them,  the  King 
of  England  will  supply  their  place  as  fast  as  they  fall." 
"  Well,"  answered  one  of  the  chieftains,  "  let  them  come. 
We  are  ready  for  them.  But  as  for  you,  brother  Williams, 
you  are  a  good  man.  You  have  been  kind  to  us  many 
years.     Not  a  hair  of  your  head  shall  be  touched."* 

We  cannot  narrate  the  incidents  of  this  dreadful  war. 
The  Indians  suffered  a  severe  defeat,  December  19,  1675, 
at  the  capture  of  their  fort,  situated  in  a  swamp  in  the 
present  town  of  South-Kingstown.  In  the  battle,  about  a 
thousand  of  the  Indians  are  supposed  to  have  been  killed, 
and  about  two  hundred  of  the  whites,  including  six  captains. 

Philip  was  finally  killed,  August  12,  1676,  near  Mount 
Hope,  by  an  Indian,  under  the  command  of  Col.  Church. 
The  war  now  closed.  It  decided  the  fate  of  the  New- 
England  Indians.  The  Pokanokets  were  nearly  exterminat- 
ed. The  Narragansets  never  recovered  from  the  blow. 
Thousands  of  the  natives  were  killed,  and  many  who  were 
made  prisoners,  were  sent  out  of  the  country  and  sold  as 
slaves. 

But  the  victory  was  dearly  bought  by  the  colonists. 
Their  whole  disposable  force  was  put  in  requisition.  Thir- 
teen towns  were  entirely  destroyed  by  the  Indians ;  six 
hundred  dwelling-houses  were  burnt,  and  about  the  same 
number  of  the  colonists,  including  twelve  captains,  were 
killed,  so  that  almost  every  family  lost  a  relative.  The 
destruction  of  property,  and  the  cost  of  the  war,  were  im- 
mense. The  disbursements  of  the  colonies  were  estimated 
at  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling.! 

The  terror  and  distress  which  this  war  produced   may 


*  Baylies'  History  of  Plymouth,  part  iii.  p.  114.  Thatcher's  In- 
dian Biography,  vol.  i.  p.  309.     Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  424. 

t  Thatcher's  Indian  Biography,  vol.  i.  p.  162.  Morton,  Appendix 
A.  A.  p.  425. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  347 

explain,  if  they  cannot  justify,  many  acts  of  the  whites. 
The  body  of  Philip  was  treated  with  an  indignity,  which 
dishonored  his  captors.  His  head  was  sent  to  Plymouth, 
where  it  was  exposed  on  a  gibbet,  and  his  hand  was 
sent  to  Boston.  His  little  son  was  taken  prisoner,  and 
several  of  the  divines  were  of  opinion,  that  he  ought  to 
be  put  to  death,  on  the  strength  of  Jewish  precedents ; 
but  he  was  spared,  only  to  be  sold  as  a  slave  in  Ber- 
muda. 

At  Providence,  the  following  occurrence  took  place,  in 
August,  after  the  death  of  Philip  : 

''  August  25.  One  Chuff,  an  Indian,  so  called  in  time 
of  peace,  because  of  his  surliness  against  the  English,  could 
scarcely  come  in,  being  wounded  some  few  days  before,  by 
Providence  men.  His  wounds  were  corrupted  and  stank, 
and  because  he  had  been  a  ringleader  all  the  war  to  most 
of  the  mischiefs  to  our  houses  and  cattle,  and  what  English 
he  could,  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  cried  out  for  justice 
against  him,  threatening  themselves  to  kill  him,  if  the  au- 
thority did  not.  For  which  reason  the  Captain  Roger  Wil- 
liams caused  the  drum  to  be  beat,  the  town  council  and 
council  of  war  to  be  called.  All  called  for  justice  and  ex- 
ecution. The  council  of  war  gave  sentence,  and  he  was 
shot  to  death,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  town." 

At  a  town  meeting,  August  14,  1676,  a  list  was  made  of 
persons  "  who  stayed  and  went  not  away,"  and  to  these 
persons,  it  was  judged,  certain  Indians,  who  were  captives, 
ought  to  be  delivered  as  slaves,  or  servants,  for  a  term  of 
years.  A  committee  was  appointed  on  the  subject,  who 
presented  the  following  report : 

''  Report  of  the  Committee  on  sale  of  Indians. 

"  We,  whose  names  are  underwritten,  being  chosen  by 
the  town,  to  set  the  disposal  of  the  Indians  now  in  town, 
we  agree,  that  Roger  Williams,  Nathan  Waterman,  Thomas 
Fenner,  Henry  Ashton,  John  Mowry,  Daniel  Abbott,  James 
Olney,  Valentine  Whitman,  John  Whipple,  sen.,  Ephraim 
Pray,  John  Pray,  John  Angell,  James  Angell,  Thomas 
Arnold,  Abraham  Mann,  Thomas  Field,  Edward  Bennett, 
Thomas  Clements,  William  Lancaster,  William  Hopkins, 
William  Hawkins,  William  Harris,  Zachariah  Field, 
Samuel  Winsor,  and  Captain  Fenner,  shall  have  each  a 


348  MEMOIR      OF 

whole  share  in  the  product.  Joseph  Woodward,  and  Rich- 
ard Pray,  each  three  fourths  of  a  share.  John  Smith,  mil- 
ler, Edward  Smith,  Samuel  Whipple,  Nelle  Whipple,  and 
Thomas  Walim,  each  half  share. 

''  Inhabitants  wanting  to  have  Indians  at  the  price  they 
sell  at  Rhode-Island  or  elsewhere  : 

"All  under  five  years,  to  serve  till  thirty;  above  five  and 
under  ten,  till  twenty-eight ;  above  ten  to  fifteen,  till  twenty- 
seven  ;  above  fifteen  to  twenty,  till  twenty-six  years ;  from 
twenty  to  thirty,  shall  serve  eight  years;  all  above  thirty, 
seven  years. 

Roger  Williams,  Thomas  Field, 

Thomas  Harris,  sen.  John  Whipple,  jr. 

Thomas  Angell,  (his  mark.) 
August  14,  1676." 

We  cannot,  at  this  day,  determine,  fairly,  the  question, 
how  far  the  sale  of  the  Indian  captives  was  necessary  or 
just.  It  is,  however,  painful  to  our  feelings ;  and  we  can- 
not but  be  surprised  and  sorry,  to  see  the  name  of  Roger 
Williams  connected  with  such  a  transaction. 

In  May,  1677,  Mr.  Williams  was  elected  an  Assistant, 
but  he  declined,  on  account,  probably,  of  his  age.  About 
this  time,  he  wrote  thus  to  the  town  of  Providence :  "  I  pray 
the  town,  that  the  place  of  meeting  be  certain,  and  some 
course  settled  for  payment ;  that  the  clerk  and  sergeant  be 
satisfied,  according  to  moderation,  that  the  town  business 
may  go  on  cheerfully ;  that  the  business  of  the  rate  (paid 
by  so  many  already)  be  finished ;  that  the  old  custom  of 
order  be  kept  in  our  meetings,  and  those  unruly  be  re- 
proved, or  upon  obstinacy,  cast  out  from  sober  and  free 
men's  company ;  that  our  ancient  use  of  arbitration  be 
brought  into  esteem  again ;  that  (it  being  constantly  re- 
ported, that  Connecticut  is  upon  the  gaining  of  his  Majesty's 
consent  to  enslave  us  to  their  parish  icorship)  we  consider 
what  we  ought  to  do."* 

In  October,  1677,  commissioners  from  the  several  colo- 
nies met  at  Providence,  to  settle  the  long  contested  disputes 
between  Mr.  Harris  and  others  about  lands.  Mr.  Harris 
laid  before  the  Court  a  long  statement,  in  which  he  pre- 

*  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  466. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  349 

ferred  heavy  charges  against  Mr.  Williams,  and  the  latter 
made  counter  statements,  in  a  similar  style.  The  result  of 
the  examination  was  favorable  to  the  claims  of  Mr.  Harris 
and  his  friends,  who  obtained  five  verdicts  from  a  jury. 
But  the  disputes  were  not  settled,  till  more  than  thirty  years 
afterwards.*  Our  limits  do  not  allow  us  to  enter  into  par- 
ticulars, which  could  not  be  detailed  without  a  tedious  and 
unprofitable  prolixity.  They  properly  belong  to  a  history 
of  the  State. 

Of  the  few  last  years  of  Mr.  Williams'  life,  we  have 
scanty  notices.  The  following  lettert  contains  a  reference 
to  his  age  and  health,  and  is  a  specimen  of  his  constant 
zeal  to  serve  his  friends  : 

^'  Narraganset,  21  July,  1679,  {ut  vulgo.) 
"  Roger  Williams,  of  Providence,  in  the  Narraganset 
Bay,  in  New-England,  being  (by  God's  mercy)  the  first 
beginner  of  the  mother  town  of  Providence,  and  of  the  col- 
ony of  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  Plantations,  being 
now  near  to  fourscore  years  of  age,  yet  (by  God's  mercy) 
of  sound  understanding  and  memory  ;  do  humbly  and  faith- 
fully declare,  that  Mr.  Richard  Smith,  senior,  who  for  his 
conscience  to  God  left  fair  possessions  in  Gloceslershire, 
and  adventured,  with  his  relations  and  estate,  to  New-Eng- 
land, and  was  a  most  acceptable  inhabitant,  and  a  prime 
leading  man  in  Taunton  and  Plymouth  colony ;  for  his 
conscience  sake,  many  differences  arising,  he  left  Taunton 
and  came  to  the  Narraganset  country,  where,  (by  God's 
mercy  and  the  favor  of  the  Narraganset  sachems)  he  broke 
the  ice  at  his  great  charge  and  hazard,  and  put  up  in  the 
thickest  of  the  barbarians,  the  first  English  house  amongst 
them.  2.  I  humbly  testify,  that  about  forty  years  from  this 
date,  he  kept  possession,  coming  and  going  himself,  children 


*  Mr.  Harris  soon  after  went  to  England,  on  this  business,  but  the 
vessel  was  captured  bj  an  Algerine  or  Tunisian  corsair,  and  he  was 
sold  for  a  slave.  His  family,  in  Rhode-Island,  redeemed  him,  by  the 
sale  of  a  part  of  his  property.  He  arrived  in  England,  but  died  there. 
He  was  an  able  man,  and  we  may  hope,  a  good  man,  notwithstand- 
ing soaie  infirmities.  His  quarrels  with  Roger  Williams  were  very 
discreditable  to  them  both.  On  which  side  the  most  blame  lay,  we 
cannot  now  decide. 

t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  421. 

30* 


350  MEMOIR      OF 

and  servants,  and  he  had  quiet  possession  of  his  housing, 
lands  and  meadow  ;  and  there,  in  his  own  house,  with  much 
serenity  of  soul  and  comfort,  he  yielded  up  his  spirit  to 
Gfod,  (the  Father  of  spirits)  in  peace.  3.  I  do  humbly  and 
faithfully  testify  as  abovesaid,  that  since  his  departure,  his 
honored  son,  Capt.  Richard  Smith,  hath  kept  possession, 
(with  much  acceptance  with  English  and  pagans)  of  his 
father's  housing,  lands  and  meadows,  with  great  improve- 
ment also  by  his  great  cost  and  industry.  And  in  the  late 
bloody  Pagan  war,  I  knowingly  testify  and  declare,  that  it 
pleased  the  Most  High  to  make  use  of  himself  in  person, 
his  housing,  goods,  corn,  provisions  and  cattle,  for  a  garri- 
son and  supply  for  the  whole  army  of  New-England,  under 
the  command  of  the  ever  to  be  honored  General  Winslow, 
for  the  service  of  his  Majesty's  honor  and  country  of  New- 
England.  4.  I  do  also  humbly  declare,  that  the  said  Capt. 
Richard  Smith,  junior,  ought,  by  all  the  rules  of  equity, 
justice  and  gratitude,  (to  his  honored  father  and  himself) 
to  be  fairly  treated  with,  considered,  recruited,  honored, 
and,  by  his  Majesty's  authority,  confirmed  and  established 
in  a  peaceful  possession  of  his  father's  and  his  own  posses- 
sions in  this  pagan  wilderness,  and  Narraganset  country. 
The  premises  I  humbly  testify,  as  now  leaving  this  country 
and  this  world. 

ROGER   WILLIAMS." 

The  following  note  was  directed  to  Mr.  Daniel  Abbott, 
the  town  clerk  of  Providence.*  The  "  considerations  pre- 
sented touching  rates,"  seem  to  have  accompanied  it. 
They  deserve  to  be  preserved,  for  many  reasons.  They 
show  the  unabated  zeal  of  Mr.  Williams,  for  the  public 
welfare.  The  opposition  to  the  payment  of  taxes  was  a 
sore  evil,  which  he  often  mentioned  and  condemned  : 

"  My  good  friend,  loving  remembrance  to  you.     It  has 

*  In  1679,  a  fine  of  five  shillings  was  enacted  for  "  riding  gallop 
in  Providence  street."  This  implies,  that  the  town  was  becoming 
populous  again,  after  the  Indian  war,  during  which  it  suflfered  much. 
Previously  to  the  war  it  contained  about  500  inhabitants,  but  many 
of  them  removed  to  Newport.  A  rate  of  sixty  pounds,  ordered  in 
1679,  was  apportioned  thus  :  Newport,  eighteen  ;  Portsmouth,  eleven ; 
Providence,  four;  Warwick,  four;  Westerly,  four  ;  New-Shoreham, 
four*  Kingstown, six 5  East-Greenwich,  three;  Jamestown,  six. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  351 

pleased  the  Most  Higli  and  Only  Wise,  to  stir  up  your 
spirit  to  be  one  of  the  chiefest  stakes  in  our  poor  hedge.  I, 
therefore,  not  being  able  to  come  to  you,  present  you  with 
a  few  thoughts  about  the  great  stumbling-block,  to  them 
that  are  willing  to  stumble  and  trouble  themselves,  our  rates. 
James  Matison  had  one  copy  of  me,  and  Thomas  Arnold 
another.  This  I  send  to  yourself  and  the  town,  (for  it  may 
be  I  shall  not  be  able  to  be  at  meeting.)  I  am  grieved 
that  you  do  so  much  service  for  so  bad  recompense ;  but  I 
am  persuaded  you  shall  find  cause  to  say,  the  Most  High 
God  of  recompense,  who  was  Abraham's  great  reward,  hath 
paid  me. 

Considerations  presented  touching  rates. 
"  1.  Government  and  order  in  families,  towns,  &&c.  is 
the  ordinance  of  the  Most  High,  Rom.  13,  for  the  peace 
and  good  of  mankind.  2.  Six  things  are  written  in  the 
hearts  of  all  mankind,  yea,  even  in  pagans :  1st.  That  there 
is  a  Deity;  2d.  That  some  actions  are  nought;  3d.  That 
the  Deity  will  punish  ;  4th.  That  there  is  another  life  ;  5th. 
That  marriage  is  honorable ;  6th.  That  mankind  cannot 
keep  together  without  some  government.  3.  There  is  no 
Englishman  in  his  Majesty's  dominions  or  elsewhere,  who 
is  not  forced  to  submit  to  government.  4.  There  is  not  a 
man  in  the  world,  except  robbers,  pirates  and  rebels,  but 
doth  submit  to  government.  5.  Even  robbers,  pirates  and 
rebels  tSiemselves  cannot  hold  together,  but  by  some  law 
among  themselves  and  government.  6.  One  of  these  two 
great  laws  in  the  world  must  prevail,  either  that  of  judges 
and  justices  of  peace  in  courts  of  peace,  or  the  law  of  arms, 
the  sword  and  blood.  7.  If  it  comes  from  the  courts  of 
trials  of  peace,  to  the  trial  of  the  sword  and  blood,  the  con- 
quered is  forced  to  seek  law  and  government.  8.  Till 
matters  come  to  a  settled  government,  no  man  is  ordinarily 
sure  of  his  house,  goods,  lands,  cattle,  wife,  children  or  life. 
9.  Hence  is  that  ancient  maxim.  It  is  better  to  live  under 
a  tyrant  in  peace,  than  under  the  sword,  or  where  every  man 
is  a  tyrant.  10.  His  Majesty  sends  governors  to  Barba- 
does,  Virginia,  &c.  but  to  us  he  shews  greater  favor  in  our 
charter,  to  choose  whom  we  please.  11.  No  charters  are 
obtained  without  great  suit,  favor  or  charges.  Our  first 
cost  a  hundred  pounds  (though  I  never  received  it  all ;) 
our  second  about  a  thousand  ;  Connecticut  about  six  thou- 


352  MEMOIR      OF 

sand,  &c.  12.  No  government  is  maintained  without  trib- 
ute, custom,  rates,  taxes,  &.c.  13.  Our  charter  excels  all 
in  New-England,  or  in  the  ivorld,  as  to  the  souls  of  men.  14. 
It  pleased  God,  Rom.  13,  to  command  tribute,  custom,  and 
consequently  rates,  not  only  for  fear,  but  for  conscience 
sake.  15.  Our  rates  are  the  least,  by  far,  of  any  colony  in 
New-England.  16.  There  is  no  man  that  hath  a  vote  in 
town  or  colony,  but  he  hath  a  hand  in  making  the  rates  hy 
himself  or  his  deputies.  17.  In  our  colony  the  General  As- 
sembly, Governor,  magistrates,  deputies,  towns,  town-clerks, 
raters,  constables,  &c.  have  done  their  duties,  the  failing 
lies  upon  particular  persons.  18.  It  is  but  folly  to  resist, 
(one  or  more,  and  if  one,  why  not  more  ?)  God  hath  stirred 
up  the  spirit  of  the  Governor,  magistrates  and  officers,  driven 
to  it  by  necessity,  to  be  unanimously  resolved  to  see  the 
matter  finished ;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to  main- 
tain, encourage,  and  strengthen  the  hand  of  authority. 
19.  Black  clouds  (some  years)  have  hung  over  Old  and 
New-England  heads.  God  hath  been  wonderfully  patient 
and  long-suffering  to  us;  but  who  sees  not  changes  and 
calamities  hanging  over  us?  20.  All  men  fear,  that  this 
blazing  herald  from  heaven*  denounceth  from  the  Most 
High,  wars,  pestilence,  famines ;  is  it  not  then  our  wisdom 
to  make  and  keep  peace  with  God  and  man  ? 
"  Your  old  unworthy  servant, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 
"Providence,  15th  Jan.  16S0-1,  {so  called.)" 

The  following  letter  to  Governor  Bradstreet,f  of  Massa- 
chusetts, contains  a  notice  of  Mr.  Williams'  health,  and 
other  interesting  topics  : 

"  To  my  much  honored,  kind  friend,  the  Gov.  Brad- 
street,  at  Boston,  present. 

*'  Providence,  6  3Icnj,  1G32,  {id  vulgo.) 
"  Sir, 
''  Your  person  and  place  are  born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks 
fly  upward ;  yet  I  am  grieved  to  disturb  your  thoughts  or 

*  Referring  to  the  great  comet  of  1680,  which  was  supposed  to  have 
approached  so  near  to  the  sun,  as  to  be  heated  two  thousand  times 
hotter  than  red  hot  iron. 

t  2  His.  Col.  viii.  p.  196. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  353 

hands  with  any  thing  from  me,  and  yet  am  refreshed  with 
the  thought,  that  sometimes  you  subscribe  [your  willing 
servant :]  and  that  your  love  and  willingness  will  turn  to 
your  account  also. 

"  Sir,  by  John  Whipple  of  Providence,  I  wrote  lately 
(though  the  letter  lay  long  by  him)  touching  the  widow 
Messinger's  daughter,  Sarah  Weld,  of  Boston,  whom  I  be- 
lieve Joseph  Homan,  of  Boston,  hath  miserably  deluded, 
slandered,  oppressed  (her  and  his  child)  by  barbarous  in- 
humanity, so  that  I  humbly  hope  your  mercy  and  justice 
will  gloriously  in  public  kiss  each  other. 

"  Sir,  this  enclosed  tells  you  that  being  old  and  weak  and 
bruised  (with  rupture  and  colic)  and  lameness  on  both  my 
feet,  I  am  directed,  by  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  to  desire  to 
attend  his  infinite  Majesty  with  a  poor  mite,  (which  makes 
but  two  farthings.)  By  my  fire-side  I  have  recollected  the 
discourses  which  (by  many  tedious  journeys)  I  have  had 
with  the  scattered  English  at  Narraganset,  before  the  war 
and  since.  I  have  reduced  them  unto  those  twenty  two 
heads,  (enclosed)  which  is  near  thirty  sheets  of  my  writing  : 
I  would  send  them  to  the  Narragansets  and  others ;  there 
is  no  controversy  in  them,  only  an  endeavor  of  a  particular 
match  of  each  poor  sinner  to  his  Maker.  For  printing,  I 
am  forced  to  WTite  to  my  friends  at  Massachusetts,  Con- 
necticut, Plymouth,  and  our  own  colony,  that  he  that  hath 
a  shilling  and  a  heart  to  countenance  and  promote  such 
a  soul  work,  may  trust  the  great  Paymaster  (who  is  before- 
hand with  us  already)  for  an  hundreth  for  one  in  this  life. 
Sir,  I  have  many  friends  at  Boston,  but  pray  you  to  call  in 
my  kind  friends  Capt.  Brattle  and  Mr.  Seth  Perry,  who 
may,  by  your  wise  discretions,  ease  yourself  of  any  bur- 
then. I  write  to  my  honored  acquaintance  at  Roxbury, 
Mr.  Dudley  and  Mr.  Eliot,  and  Mr.  Stoughton,  at  Dorches- 
ter, and  to  Capt.  Gookins,  at  Cambridge,  and  pray  yourself 
and  him  to  consult  about  a  little  help  from  Charlestown, 
where  death  has  stript  me  of  all  my  acquaintance.  Sir,  if 
you  can  return  that  chapter  of  my  reply  to  G ton,  con- 
cerning New-England,  I  am  advised  to  let  it  sleep,  and 
forbear  public  contests  with  Protestants,  since  it  is  the 
design  of  hell  and  Rome  to  cut  the  throats  of  all  the  pro- 
testors in  the  world.  Yet  I  am  occasioned,  in  this  book, 
to  say  much  for  the  honor  and  peace  of  New-England. 


354  MEMOIR      OF 

"  Sir,  I  shall  humbly  wait  for  your  advice  where  it  may 
be  best  printed,  at  Boston  or  Cambridge,  and  for  how 
much,  the  printer  finding  paper.  We  have  tidings  here  of 
Shaftsbury's  and  Howard's  beheading,  and  contrarily,  their 
release,  London  manifestations  of  joy,  and  the  King's  call- 
ing a  Parliament.  But  all  these  are  but  sublunaries,  tem- 
poraries and  trivials.  Eternity  (O  eternity !)  is  our  business, 
to  which  end  I  am  most  unworthy  to  be 

"  Your  willing  and  faithful  servant, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"  My  humble  respects  to  Mrs.  Bradstreet,  and  other  hon- 
ored friends." 

The  foregoing  letter  furnishes  proof,  that  Mr.  Williams, 
even  after  Philip's  war,  and  consequently  after  he  had 
passed  his  77th  year,  went  to  Narraganset,  and  delivered 
discourses.  His  zeal  for  the  salvation  of  men  was  not  ex- 
tinguished by  his  age,  nor  was  he  prevented  from  efforts  to 
save  them,  by  his  theory  respecting  the  ministry.  That 
zeal  is  displayed  in  his  desire  to  print  these  discourses, 
after  disease  confined  him  to  his  home.  The  letter,  too, 
leads  us  to  infer  his  poverty.  He  would  not,  probably,  have 
solicited  aid  to  print  so  small  a  work,  if  he  had  possessed  the 
means.  His  son's  letter,  quoted  in  a  preceding  page,*  in- 
timates, that  Mr.  Williams  was  dependent  on  his  children, 
to  some  extent,  at  least,  during  the  last  years  of  his  life. 
Poverty  was  honorable  in  a  man,  who  had  spent  his  best 
days  in  the  public  service,  and  who  had  been  more  in- 
tent on  making  others  happy,  than  on  the  promotion  of  his 
own  private  interests. 

Of  the  immediate  cause  and  exact  time  of  Mr.  Williams' 
death,  we  are  not  informed.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 
he  died,  at  some  time  between  January  16,  1682-3,  and 
May  10,  1683.  On  the  former  day,  he  signed  a  document 
which  was  intended  as  a  settlement  of  the  controversy  re- 
specting the  Pawtuxet  lands.  On  the  10th  of  May,  Mr. 
John  Thornton  wrote  to  the  Rev.  Samuel  Hubbard,  from 
Providence  :  "  The  Lord  hath  arrested  by  death  our  ancient 
and  approved  friend,  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  with  divers 
others  here."t     He  was  in  the  84th  year  of  his  age.     It 

*  Page  110.  t  Backus,  vol.  i.  p.  515. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  355 

would  be  gratifying  to  have  some  account  of  his  last  hours, 
but  we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  that  his  end  was  peace. 
He  *'  was  buried,"  says  Mr.  Callender  (p.  93,)  "with  all  the 
solemnity  the  colony  was  able  to  show,"  His  remains  were 
deposited,  in  his  own  family  burying-ground,  on  his  town- 
lot,  a  short  distance  only  from  the  place  where  he  landed, 
and  from  the  spot  where  his  dwelling-house  stood.  His 
wife  probably  survived  him,*  and  all  his  children,  it  is  be- 
lieved, were  living  at  his  death. t 

Thus  terminated  the  long  and  active  life  of  the  founder 
of  Rhode-Island,  fifty-two  years  of  which  elapsed,  after  his 
arrival  in  America.  It  now  remains,  to  present  a  summary 
view  of  his  writings,  and  some  comments  on  his  character. 

*  She  was  certainly  alive  in  November,  1679. — Backus,  vol.  i.  p. 
478. 

f  See  Appendix  H.  for  some  account  of  his  grave,  and  of  his 
family. 


356  MEMOIR      OF 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

Mr.  Williams'  writings — Key — Bloody  Tenet — liberty  of  conscience 
— Mr.  Cotton's  Reply — Mr.  Williams'  Rejoinder. 

Our  examination  of  the  writings  of  Mr.  Williams  must 
be  brief  Sufficient  specimens  of  his  style  have  been  given 
in  the  preceding  pages.  We  shall,  therefore,  present  no 
extracts  from  his  books,  except  such  as  may  be  necessary 
to  explain  their  character,  or  to  illustrate  his  principles. 

His  first  printed  book  was  his  Key.  The  title  page  is 
in  these  words  :  "  A  Key  into  the  Language  of  America, 
or  a  Help  to  the  Language  of  the  Natives,  in  that  part  of 
America  called  New-England ;  together  with  brief  Obser- 
vations of  the  Customs,  Manners  and  Worships,  &c.  of  the 
aforesaid  Natives,  in  Peace  and  War,  in  Life  and  Death. 
On  all  which  are  added.  Spiritual  Observations,  general 
and  particular,  by  the  Author,  of  chief  and  special  use 
(upon  all  occasions)  to  all  the  English  inhabiting  those 
Parts ;  yet  pleasant  and  profitable  to  the  View  of  all  Men. 
By  Roger  Williams,  of  Providence,  in  New-England.  Lon- 
don.    Printed  by  Gregory  Dexter,  1643." 

It  was  dedicated  "  to  my  dear  and  well-beloved  friends 
and  countrymen  in  Old  and  New-England."  In  this  dedi- 
cation, he  says,  "  This  Key  respects  the  native  language  of 
it,  and  happily  may  unlock  some  rarities  concerning  the 
natives  themselves,  not  yet  discovered.  A  little  key  may 
open  a  box,  where  lies  a  bunch  of  keys."  He  professes 
his  hope,  that  his  book  may  contribute  to  the  spread  of 
Christianity  among  the  natives,  "  being  comfortably  per- 
suaded, that  that  Father  of  spirits,  who  was  graciously 
pleased  to  persuade  Japhet  (the  Gentile)  to  dwell  in  the 
tents  of  Shem  (the  Jews)  will,  in  his  holy  season,  (I  hope 
approaching)  persuade  these  Gentiles  of  America  to  par- 
take of  the  mercies  of  Europe  ;  and  then  shall  be  fulfilled 
what  is  written  by  the  prophet  Malachi,  from  the  rising  of 
the  sun  (in  Europe)  to  the  going  down  of  the  same  (in 
America)  my  name  shall  be  great  among  the  Gentiles." 

The  book  is  divided  into  thirty-two  chapters,  the  titles 


ROGER      WIl,LIAiMS.  357 

of  which  are,  Of  Salutation.  Of  Eating  and  Entertainment. 
Of  Sleep.  Of  their  Numbers.  Of  Relations  and  Consan- 
guinity, &LC.  Of  Houses,  Family,  &>c.  Of  Parts  of  Body. 
Of  Discourse  and  News.  Of  Time  of  Day.  Of  Seasons  of 
the  Year.  Of  Travel.  Of  the  Heavenly  Lights.  Of  the 
Weather.  Of  the  Winds.  Of  Fowl.  Of  the  Earth  and 
Fruits  thereof  Of  Beasts  and  Cattle.  Of  the  Sea.  Of  Fish 
and  Fishing.  Of  their  Nakedness  and  Clothing.  Of  their . 
Religion,  Soul,  vS^c.  Of  their  Government.  Of  their  Mar- 
riages. Of  their  Coin.  Of  their  Trading.  Of  their  Debts 
and  Trusting.  Of  their  Hunting.  Of  their  Sports  and 
Gaming.  Of  their  Wars.  Of  their  Paintings.  Of  their  Sick- 
ness.   Of  their  Death  and  Burial. 

•The  w^ork  is  ingeniously  constructed  in  such  a  manner, 
as  to  present  a  vocabulary  of  Indian  words,  with  their  sig- 
nifications, while  valuable  information  is  given  concerning 
the  various  topics  enumerated  in  the  titles  of  the  chapters. 
Appended  to  each  chapter  are  some  pious  reflections,  and 
a  few  lines  of  rude  poetry. 

An  extract  from  the  twenty-first  chapter,  "  Of  Religion, 
the  Soul,  &LC."  will  furnish  a  specimen  of  the  work. 

"  Manit  Manittowock,     God,  Gods. 

"  Obs.  He  that  questions  whether  God  made  the  world, 
the  Indians  will  teach  him.  I  must  acknowdedge,  I  have 
received,  in  my  converse  with  them,  many  confirmations  of 
those  two  great  points,  Heb.  11  :  6.  viz  : 

"  1.     That  God  is. 

"  2.  That  he  is  a  rewarder  of  all  them  that  diligently 
seek  him. 

"  They  will  generally  confess  that  God  made  all;  but 
then,  in  special,  although  they  deny  not  that  Englishman's 
God  made  English  men,  and  the  heavens  and  earth  there ; 
yet  their  Gods  made  them,  and  the  heaven  and  the  earth 
where  they  dwell. 

"  Nummus  quauna-muckqun  manit.  God  is  angry  with 
me. 

"  Obs.  I  heard  a  poor  Indian  lamenting  the  loss  of  a 
child,  at  break  of  day,  call  up  his  wife  and  children,  and 
all  about  him,  to  lamentation,  and  with  abundance  of  tears, 
cry  out,  O,  God,  thou  hast  taken  away  my  child  !  thou  art 

31 


358 


MEMOIR      OF 


angry  with  me  :  O,  turn  thine  anger  from   me,  and   spare 
the  rest  of  my  children. 

"  If  they  receive  any  good  in  hunting,  fishing,  harvest, 
&LC.  they  acknowledge  God  in  it. 

"  Yea,  if  it  be  but  an  ordinary  accident,  a  fall,  &/C.  they 
will  say,  God  was  angry  and  did  it. 
*'  Musquantum  manit.     God  is  angry. 
*'  But  herein  is  their  misery  : 

"  First.  They  branch  their  godhead  into  many  gods. 
*'  Secondly.  Attribute  it  to  creatures. 
"  First.  Many  gods  :    they  have  given  me  the  names  of 
thirty-seven,  which  I  have,  all  which,  in  their  solemn  wor- 
ships, they  invocate  :   as, 

"  Kautantowwit.  The  great  south-west  god,  to  whose 
house  all  souls  go,  and  from  whom  came  their  corn  and 
beans,  as  they  say. 

Wompanand,  The  eastern  god. 

Chekesuwand.  The  western  god. 

Wunnanameanit.  The  northern  god. 

Sowwanand,  The  southern  god. 

Wetuomanit.  The  house  god. 

"  Even  as  the  papists  have  their  he  and  she  saint  pro- 
tectors, as  St.  George,  St.  Patrick,  St.  Dennis,  Virgin  Mary, 
&c. 

Squauanit.  The  woman's  god. 

Muckquachuckquand.       The  children's  god. 
"  Secondly.  As  they  have  many  of  these  feigned  deities, 
so  worship  they  the  creatures  in  whom   they  conceive  doth 
rest  some  deity  : 

Keesuckquand.  The  sun  god. 

Nanepaushat.  The  moon  god. 

Paumpagussit.  The  sea. 

Yotaanit.  The  fire  god. 

"  Supposing  that  deities  be  in  these,  &c." 

'^  The  general  Observation  of  Religion,  t^v. 

"  The  wandering  generations  of  Adam's  lost  posterity, 
having  lost  the  true  and  living  God,  their  Maker,  have 
created,  out  of  the  nothing  of  their  own  inventions,  many 
false  and  feigned  gods  and  creators. 

"  More  particular. 


ROGER      WILLIAINIS.  359 

''  Two  sorts  of  men  shall  naked  stand, 

Before  the  burning-  ire 
Of  him,  that  shortly  shall  appear, 

In  dreadful  flaming  fire. 
First,  millions  know  not  God,  nor  for 

His  knowledge  care  to  seek  ; 
Millions  have  knowledge  store,  but,  in 

Obedience,  are  not  meek. 
If  woe  to  Indians,  where  shall  Turk, 

Where  shall  appear  the  Jew  ? 
O,  where  shall  stand  the  Christian  false  ? 

O,  blessed  then  the  true." 

The  work  displays  genius,  industry  and  benevolence.  It 
was  very  valuable  when  it  was  written,  and  it  is  still  one 
of  the  best  works  on  the  subject.  It  breathes,  throughout, 
a  spirit  of  piety,  and  it  closes  in  the  following  devout 
strain : 

"  Now,  to  the  Most  High  and  Most  Holy,  Immortal,  In- 
visible, and  only  wise  God,  who  alone  is  Alpha  and  Omega, 
the  beginning  and  the  ending,  the  first  and  the  last,  who 
was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come ;  from  whom,  by  whom,  and  to 
whom  are  all  things ;  by  whose  gracious  assistance  and 
wonderful  supportment  in  so  many  varieties  of  hardship 
and  outward  miseries,  I  have  had  such  converse  with  bar- 
barous nations,  and  have  been  mercifully  assisted,  to  frame 
this  poor  Key,  which  may  (through  his  blessing,  in  his  own 
holy  season,)  open  a  door,  yea,  doors  of  unknown  mercies 
to  us  and  them,  be  honor,  glory,  power,  riches,  wisdom, 
goodness  and  dominion  ascribed  by  all  his  in  Jesus  Christ 
to  eternity.     Amen." 

Of  the  original  edition,  the  copy  in  the  library  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society  is  probably  the  only  one 
in  this  country.  In  the  third  and  fifth  volumes  of  the  So- 
ciety's Collections,  first  series,  a  large  part  of  the  work 
was  republished.  The  first  volume  of  the  Collections  of 
the  Rhode-Island  Historical  Society  contains  a  handsome 
edition  of  the  Key,  with  a  well  written  preface,  and  a  brief 
memoir  of  the  author. 

His  next  publication  was  entitled  "  The  Bloody  Tenet 
of  Persecution,  for  Cause  of  Conscience,  discussed,  in  a 
Conference  between  Truth  and  Peace,  who,  in  all  tender 
affection,  present  to  the  High  Court  of  Parliament  (as  the 


360  MEMOIR      OF 

result  of  their  Discourse)  these,  (amongst  other  passages) 
of  highest  consideration.  Printed  in  the  year  1644."  It 
was  published  without  the  name  of  the  author. 

The  origin  of  this  work  was  this  :  A  person,  who  was 
confined  in  Newgate,  on  account  of  his  religious  opinions, 
wrote  a  paper  against  persecution.  "  Having  not  the  use 
of  pen  and  ink,  he  wrote  these  arguments  in  milk,  in  sheets 
of  paper,  brought  to  him  by  the  woman,  his  keeper,  from  a 
friend  in  London,  as  the  stopples  of  his  milk  bottle.  In 
such  paper,  written  with  milk,  nothing  will  appear ;  but 
the  way  of  reading  it  by  fire  being  known  to  this  friend, 
who  received  the  papers,  he  transcribed  and  kept  together 
the  papers."  * 

This  essay  was  sent  to  Mr.  Cotton,  of  Boston.  He 
wrote  a  reply,  of  which  Mr.  Williams'  book  is  an  examina- 
tion. Its  title,  "  The  Bloody  Tenet,"  is  a  fanciful  refer- 
ence to  the  circumstance,  that  the  original  paper  of  the 
prisoner  was  written  with  milk.  "  These  arguments  against 
such  persecution,  and  the  answer  pleading  for  it,  written 
(as  love  hopes)  from  godly  intentions,  hearts  and  hands,  yet 
in  a  marvellous  different  style  and  manner — the  arguments 
against  persecution  in  milk,  the  answer  for  it  (as  I  may  say) 
in  blood." 

The  book  is  dedicated  "  To  the  Right  Honorable,  both 
Houses  of  the  High  Court  of  Parliament."  After  an  ad- 
dress "  To  every  courteous  reader,"  and  a  minute  table  of 
contents,  the  essay  of  the  prisoner  and  Mr.  Cotton's  reply 
are  inserted.  Then  follows  the  main  work,  divided  into 
one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  short  chapters,  eighty-one  of 
which  are  employed  in  discussing  Mr.  Cotton's  reply,  and 
the  remainder  in  examining  "  A  Model  of  Church  and 
Civil  Power,  composed  by  Mr.  Cotton  and  the  Ministers  of 
New-England,  and  sent  to  the  Church  at  Salem,  as  a  fur- 
ther Confirmation  of  the  Bloody  Doctrine  of  Persecution 
for  Cause  of  Conscience."  The  whole  work  forms  a  small 
quarto,  of  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  pages.  A  few 
copies  exist,  in  the  large   libraries   in   this   country.!     It 


*  Bloody  Tenet,  p.  18. 

t  The  copy  now  before  me  belongs  to  the  library  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, having  been  borrowed  in  accordance  with  the  very  liberal  reg- 
ulations of  that  noble  collection  of  books.     This  copy  was  presented 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  361 

ought  to  be  reprinted,  and  it  is  hoped  that  the  Rhode- 
Ishind  Historical  Society  will  make  it  one  of  the  volumes 
of  their  Collections.  It  is  the  best  work  of  its  author,  and 
it  contains  a  full  exhibition  of  his  principles.  Its  style  is 
animated,  and  often  beautiful.*  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  dia- 
logue between  Truth  and  Peace,  and  the  colloquy  is  sus- 
tained with  great  skill.     It  commences  thus  : 

"  Truth.  In  what  dark  corner  of  the  world  (sweet 
Peace)  are  we  two  met?  How  hath  this  present  evil  world 
banished  me  from  all  the  coasts  and  quarters  of  it,  and  how 
hath  the  righteous  God  in  judgment  taken  thee  from  the 
earth  ?     Rev.  6  :  4. 

"  Peace.  '  Tis  lamentably  true,  (blessed  Truth)  the  foun- 
dations of  the  world  have  long  been  out  of  course.  The 
gates  of  earth  and  hell  have  conspired  together  to  intercept 
our  joyful  meeting,  and  our  holy  kisses.  With  what  a 
weary,  tired  wing,  have  I  flown  over  nations,  kingdoms, 
cities,  towns,  to  find  out  precious  Truth. 

"  Truth.  The  like  inquiries,  in  my  flights  and  travels, 
have  I  made  for  Peace,  and  still  am  told,  she  hath  left  the 
earth  and  fled  to  heaven. 

''  Peace.  Dear  Truth,  what  is  the  earth  but  a  dungeon 
of  darkness,  where  Truth  is  not?" 

An  analysis  of  this  book  would  occupy  too  much  space. 
The  author  himself  presents  a  summary  view  of  its  contents 
in  the  introduction : 

"  First.  That  the  blood  of  so  many  hundred  thousand  souls 
of  protestants  and  papists,  spilt  in  the  wars  of  present  and 


by  the  second  Thomas  Hollis,  and  it  contains,  on  the  title  page,  in 
his  hand-writing,  I  presume,  the  words,  "^  curious  tract."  It  is 
pleasant  to  connect  the  names  of  Williams  and  Ilollis. 

*  It  was  prepared  under  great  disadvantages.  He  says  :  "  When 
these  discussions  were  prepared  for  the  public,  in  London,  his  time 
was  eaten  up  in  attendance  upon  the  service  of  the  Parliament  and 
city,  for  the  supply  of  the  poor  of  the  city  with  wood,  (during  the 
stop  of  the  coal  from  Newcastle,  and  the  mutinies  of  the  poor  for 
firing.)  These  meditations  were  fitted  for  public  view  in  change  of 
rooms  and  corners,  yea,  sometimes  (upon  occasions  of  travel  in  the 
country,  concerning  that  business  of  fuel,)  in  variety  of  strange 
houses,  sometimes  in  the  fields,  in  the  midst  of  travel,  where  he  hath 
been  forced  to  gather  and  scatter  his  loose  thoughts  and  papers." 
Bloody  Tenet  made  More  Bloody,  p.  38. 

31* 


362  MEMOIR      OF 

former  ages,  for  their  respective  consciences,  is  not  required 
nor  accepted  by  Jesus  Christ  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

"  Secondly.  Pregnant  Scriptures  and  arguments  are 
throughout  the  work  proposed  against  the  doctrine  of  per- 
secution for  cause  of  conscience. 

"  Thirdly.  Satisfactory  answers  are  given  to  Scriptures, 
and  objections  produced  by  Mr.  Calvin,  Beza,  Mr.  Cotton, 
and  the  ministers  of  the  New  English  churches,  and  others 
former  and  later,  tending  to  prove  the  doctrine  of  persecu- 
tion for  cause  of  conscience. 

*'  Fourthly.  The  doctrine  of  persecution  for  cause  of 
conscience,  is  proved  guilty  of  all  the  blood  of  the  souls 
crying  for  vengeance  under  the  altar. 

"  Fifthly.  All  civil  states,  with  their  officers  of  justice,  in 
the  irrespective  constitutions  and  administrations,  are  proved 
essentially  civil,  and  therefore  not  judges,  governors,  or 
defenders  of  the  spiritual  or  christian  state  and  worship. 

"  Sixthly.  It  is  the  will  and  command  of  God,  that  since 
the  coming  of  his  Son,  the  Lord  Jesus,  a  permission  of  the 
most  Paganish,  Jewish,  Turkish  or  Antichristian  con- 
sciences and  worships,  be  granted  to  all  men  in  all  nations 
and  countries  :  and  they  are  to  be  fought  against  with  that 
sword,  which  is  only  in  soul  matters  able  to  conquer,  to 
wit,  the  sword  of  God's  Spirit,  the  word  of  God. 

"  Seventhly.  The  state  of  the  land  of  Israel,  the  kings 
and  people  thereof,  in  peace  and  war,  is  proved  figurative 
and  ceremonial,  and  no  pattern  nor  precedent  for  any  king- 
dom or  civil  state  in  the  world  to  follow. 

"  Eighthly.  God  requireth  not  a  uniformity  of  religion 
to  be  enacted  or  enforced  in  any  civil  state  ;  which  enforc- 
ed uniformity  sooner  or  later  is  the  greatest  occasion  of 
civil  war,  ravishing  of  conscience,  persecution  of  Christ 
Jesus  in  his  servants,  and  of  the  hypocrisy  and  destruction 
of  millions  of  souls. 

"  Ninthly.  In  holding  an  enforced  uniformity  of  reli- 
gion in  a  civil  state,  we  must  necessarily  disclaim  our  de- 
sires and  hopes  of  the  Jews'  conversion  to  Christ. 

"  Tenthly.  An  enforced  uniformity  of  religion  throughout 
a  nation  or  civil  state,  confounds  the  civil  and  religious, 
denies  the  principles  of  Christianity  and  civility,  and  thai 
Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh. 

"  Eleventhly.    The  permission  of  other  consciences  and 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  363 

worships,  than  a  state  professeth,  only  can  according  to 
God  procure  a  firm  and  lasting  peace,  good  assurance 
being  taken  according  to  the  wisdom  of  the  civil  state  for 
uniformity  of  civil  obedience  from  all  sorts. 

"  Twelfthly.  Lastly,  true  civility  and  Christianity  may 
both  flourish  in  a  state  or  kingdom,  notwithstanding  the 
permission  of  divers  and  contrary  consciences,  either  of 
Jews  or  Gentiles." 

Without  examining  the  numerous  arguments  and  texts, 
with  which  Mr.  Williams  fortifies  his  doctrine,  we  will 
briefly  state  the  general  principles  of  liberty  of  conscience. 

All  men  are  bound  by  the  laws  of  God,  and  are  respon- 
sible to  Him  for  their  conduct.  He  requires  them  to  love, 
worship  and  obey  Him.  From  this  duty,  they  cannot  be 
released.  The  conscience  cannot  be  freed  from  this  obli- 
gation. God  has  not  granted  any  liberty  to  disobey  His 
commands.- 

As  God  is  the  Supreme  Ruler,  He  may  prescribe  the 
modes  in  which  He  chooses  to  be  worshipped,  and  may 
enforce  conformity  by  temporal  penalties.  This  he  did 
in  the  Jewish  commonwealth.  He  established  a  system  of 
rites,  and  armed  the  magistrate  with  power  to  coerce  the 
consciences  of  the  Jews.  The  civil  sword  was  rightly  used 
to  maintain  the  national  religion,  because  the  magistrate 
acted  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  Jehovah.  The 
destruction  of  several  heathen  nations,  by  the  Jews,  was 
just,  because  God  commanded  the  act.  He  uses  what  in- 
struments he  pleases  to  punish  men,  and  the  chastisement 
was  deserved,  whether  it  was  inflicted  by  the  Jewish 
sword,  or  by  famine  or  pestilence. 

But  since  the  introduction  of  the  christian  system,  the 
case  is  altered.  The  obligation  to  love  God  and  obey  the 
Gospel,  binds  the  conscience  of  every  man ;  but  he  is  re- 
sponsible to  God  alone.  His  fellow  men  have  no  right  to 
interfere.  God  has  not  delegated  to  any  man  this  authority 
over  the  conscience. 

All  human  laws,  therefore,  which  either  prescribe  or 
prohibit  certain  doctrines  or  rites,  that  are  not  inconsis- 
tent with  the  civil  peace,  are  unjust,  and  are  an  invasion 
of  the  prerogatives  of  God.  They  are  consequently  null 
and  void,  and  no  man  is  bound  to  obey  them.  The  reasons 
are  obvious : 


364  MEMOIR     OF 

Such  laws  are  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  and  letter  of 
the  New  Testament.  The  Saviour  gave  no  intimation  to 
his  ministers,  that  force  should  be  employed  in  the  diffu- 
sion of  his  Gospel,  He  appointed,  on  the  contrary,  the 
preaching  of  the  truth,  an  appeal  to  the  understandings  and 
hearts  of  men,  as  the  means  by  which  his  kingdom  was 
to  be  established.  His  apostles  accordingly  went  abroad 
among  the  nations,  proclaiming  the  Gospel,  and  by  moral 
suasion,  endeavoring  to  bring  men  to  the  obedience  of 
faith.  They  represented  themselves  to  be  ambassadors, 
commissioned  to  declare  the  will  of  their  Sovereign,  but 
not  authorized  to  employ  force.  *'  We  are  ambassadors 
for  Christ ;  as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by  us,  we  pray 
you,  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God."  *'  Know- 
ing, therefore,  the  terror  of  the  Lord,  we  persuade  men."* 
The  great  commission  of  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  is, 
''  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every 
creature  ;  he  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved, 
but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned. "f  The  only 
legitimate  means,  therefore,  of  operating  on  the  wills  of 
men,  in  reference  to  religion,  are  the  affecting  truths,  the 
precious  promises,  and  the  terrific  threatenings  of  the  word 
of  God.  These  are  to  be  presented  to  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  men,  with  solemnity  and  urgent  affection  ;  but  here  the 
agency  of  man  ceases.  If  men  choose  to  disobey  the  Gos- 
pel, they  do  it  on  their  responsibility  to  God,  who  will  bring 
them  into  judgment  for  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 

The  early  believers  acted  on  this  principle ;  and  after 
Christians  obtained  possession  of  the  civil  power,  the  em- 
ployment of  force  to  constrain  the  conscience  was  not  in- 
troduced, till  the  purity  of  Christianity  became  corrupted 
by  her  alliance  with  the  state. |  The  remark  of  Tertullian,§ 
expresses  the  feelings  of  the  early  Christians  :  "  It  is  the 
natural  civil  right  of  every  man  to  worship  whatever  he 
pleases.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  nature  of  religion  to 
propagate  it  by  force,  for  it  must  be  received  by  voluntary 
consent,  not  by  coercion." 

*  2  Cor.  5  :  IL  20.  t  Mark,  IG  :  IG. 

+  Bishop  Taylor's  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  sec.  14. 

§  "  Humani  juris  et  naturalis  potestatJs,  unicuique  quod  putaverit 
colere.  Sed  nee  religionis  estccgere  religicncm,  quae  suscipifspcnte 
debet,  non  vi." 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  365 

This  remark  suggests  another  argument.  Religion  es- 
sentially consists  in  love  to  God.  Its  seat  is  the  soul. 
External  acts  of  worship  are  merely  manifestations  of  this 
inward  principle,  and  derive  from  it  all  their  value.  When 
they  do  not  spring  from  it,  they  are  not  acceptable  to  God. 
The  principle  may  exist,  in  vigor  and  purity,  without  any 
external  expressions  ;  and  much  of  the  intercourse  of  every 
Christian  with  God  consists  in  this  silent  communion  of 
his  soul  with  the  great  Invisible.  But,  from  the  nature  of 
man,  he  needs  external  modes  of  manifesting  his  feelings, 
in  order  to  preserve  those  feelings  in  healthful  action. 
God  accordingly  requires  worship,  and  obedience  to  certain 
rites.  The  social  principle  is  brought  into  action,  and 
individual  Christians  increase  their  own  strength,  by  union 
with  their  fellow  Christians  in  acts  of  devotion. 

But  when  force  is  employed,  to  constrain  men  to  the 
performance  of  religious  duties,  the  end  proposed  is  not 
attained.  Men  may  be  made  to  assume  attitudes,  and  to 
repeat  words,  and  to  visit  certain  places ;  but  they  cannot 
be  forced,  by  human  power,  to  love  God.  They  cannot 
thus  be  made  religious.  The  soul  is  not  subject  to  human 
constraint.  Men  cannot  penetrate  the  interior  sanctuary, 
where  she  resides,  in  the  awful  presence  of  God  alone.  It 
is  absurd,  therefore,  to  attempt  to  accomplish,  by  human 
laws,  what  they  are  incompetent,  from  their  nature,  to 
effect.  No  legislator  ever  enacted  a  law,  requiring  the  cit- 
izens to  love  the  state.  The  law  provides  for  the  punish- 
ment of  actions  inconsistent  with  this  love  ;  but  beyond 
the  external  manifestations  of  the  inward  feelings,  it  does 
not  attempt  to  extend  its  jurisdiction.  Laws  requiring 
men  to  perform  religious  duties  are  vain,  as  well  as  unjust. 
They  attempt  an  impossibility,  because  the  duty  is  not  per- 
formed, unless  it  springs  from  love  to  God ;  which  love  no 
human  power  can  create  in  the  soul. 

But  such  laws  are  unjust,  because  God  has  given  to  men 
no  power  over  the  conscience,  and  because  men  cannot 
grant  this  power  to  each  other.  Civil  society  is  necessary 
to  the  happiness  of  men,  and  a  sufficient  amount  of  power 
must  be  confided  to  the  hands  of  rulers,  for  the  protection 
of  society.  But  the  degree  of  this  delegated  authority  is 
limited  by  its  objects.  The  regulation  of  the  conscience 
is  not  one  of  the  purposes  for  which  men  combine  in  civil 


366  MEMOIR      OF 

society.  The  object  of  such  a  society  is  the  promotion  of 
civil  interests.  Those  interests  must  be  guarded  and  pro- 
moted. Life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  must  be 
secured  to  every  citizen.  When  these  ends  are  attained, 
government  has  fulfilled  its  purpose.  It  has  no  power  to 
dictate  to  the  citizen,  in  what  mode  he  shall  pursue  happi- 
ness. It  cannot  interfere  with  his  domestic  or  social  rela- 
tions, unless  the  public  welfare  is  injured.  It  cannot,  above 
all,  intrude  into  the  hallowed  asylum,  where  the  religious 
affections  reign.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  theory  of  the 
social  compact,  to  suppose,  that  men  have  surrendered  to 
the  state  the  right  to  control  their  faith, — a  surrender  which 
is  not  necessary  to  the  ends  for  which  men  unite  in  politi- 
cal communities. 

But  if  men  were  willing  to  yield  this  right,  they  could 
not  do  it.  God  holds  «very  man  personally  responsible. 
Every  individual  must  stand  at  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ, 
and  give  an  account  of  his  own  actions.  No  man,  there- 
fore, can  surrender  to  another  the  control  over  his  con- 
science. His  soul  is  committed  to  his  own  responsibility, 
and  of  him  God  will  require  it.  He  must  not  commit  him- 
self implicitly  to  the  control  or  guidance  of  any  man  ;  but, 
seeking  for  light  from  Heaven,  he  must  strive  for  the  per- 
fection of  his  moral  nature,  and  for  a  preparation  for  the 
eternal  life  beyond  the  grave. 

The  absurdity  of  permitting  the  civil  magistrate  to  reg- 
ulate the  conscience,  is  shown  by  the  fiict,  that  the  ma- 
gistrate will  make  his  own  views  the  standard  of  ortho- 
doxy ;  and,  consequently,  it  has  happened,  that  successive 
rulers  have  maintained,  by  force,  totally  opposite  sys- 
tems of  faith  and  practice.  Mr.  Williams  says,  on  this 
point,  "  Who  knows  not,  that  within  the  compass  of  one 
poor  span  of  twelve  years'  revolution,  all  England  hath  be- 
come from  half  Papist,  half  Protestant,  to  be  absolute 
Protestants  ;  from  absolute  Protestants  to  be  absolute  Pa- 
pists ;  from  absolute  Papists,  (changing  as  fashions)  to  ab- 
solute Protestants."* 

The  magistrate  must  be  infallible,  in  order  to  be  a  safe 
guide  to  the  consciences  of  men.  This  consideration  is  a 
sufficient  answer  to  Mr.  Cotton's  sophism,  that  a  man  must 

*  Bloody  Tenet,  p.  185. 


ROGER     W  I  L  L  I  A  31  S.  367 

not  be  persecuted  for  his  opinions,  but  he  may  be  punished 
for  acting  in  contradiction  to  his  own  conscience.  But 
who  is  to  be  the  judge?  Fundamentals,  says  Mr.  Cotton, 
nre  so  clear,  that  a  man  must  be  criminally  blind  and  ob- 
stinate, who  does  not  receive  and  obey  them.  But  what 
are  these  fundamentals  ?  is  a  question  which  different 
magistrates  will  decide  differently  ;  and  men  may  be  suc- 
cessively rewarded  and  punished,  by  successive  administra- 
tions, for  the  same  opinions. 

The  great  and  true  principle,  then,  is,  that  men  are  not 
responsible  to  each  other,  for  their  religious  opinions  or 
practices,  as  such  ;  and  that  every  man  has  a  right,  as  a 
citizen,  to  hold  any  opinions,  and  to  practise  any  ceremo- 
nies, which  he  pleases,  unless  he  disturbs  the  civil  peace. 
The  duty  of  the  magistrate,  in  relation  to  religion,  consists 
in  personal  obedience  to  the  truth,  and  impartial  protec- 
tion to  all  the  citizens  in  the  exercise  of  their  religious 
privileges.  Mr.  Williams  has  well  stated  this  point.  In 
answer  to  the  question,  "What  may  the  magistrate  law- 
fully do  with  his  civil  power  in  matters  of  religion  ?"  he 
says : 

"  The  civil  magistrate  either  respecteth  that  religion  and 
worship,  which  his  conscience  is  persuaded  is  true  and 
upon  which  he  ventures  his  soul  ;  or  else,  that  and  those 
which  he  is  persuaded  are  false.  Concerning  the  first,  if 
that  which  the  magistrate  believeth  to  be  true,  be  true,  I  say 
he  owes  a  three-fold  duty  to  it. 

"  First,  approbation  and  countenance,  a  reverent  esteem 
and  honorable  testimony  (according  to  Isaiah  49,  and 
Rev.  31)  with  a  tender  respect  of  truth,  and  of  the  pro- 
fessors of  it. 

"  Secondly,  personal  submission  of  his  own  soul  to  the 
power  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  in  that  spiritual  government  and 
kingdom,  according  to  Matt.  18,  and  1  Cor.  5. 

"  Thirdly,  protection  of  such  true  professors  of  Christ, 
whether  apart,  or  met  together,  as  also  of  their  estates, 
from  violence  or  injury,  according  to  Rom.  13, 

"  Now,  secondly,  if  it  be  a  false  religion  (unto  which  the 
civil  magistrate  dare  not  adjoin,)  yet  he  owes  : 

"First,  permission  (for  approbation  he  owes  not  to  what 
is  evil)  and  thus  according  to  Matthew  13  :  30,  for  public 
peace  and  quiet  sake. 


368  MEMOIR      OF 

"  Secondly,  he  owes  protection  to  the  persons  of  his  sub- 
jects (though  of  a  false  worship)  that  no  injury  be  offered 
either  to  the  persons  or  goods  of  any.     Rom.  13."* 

It  follows,  from  this  last  position,  that  no  man  can  be 
lawfully  compelled  to  support  a  system  of  worship  which  he 
disapproves ;  for  this  is,  in  effect,  to  tax  and  punish  him  for 
his  religious  opinions. 

The  duty  of  the  magistrate  is  thus   very  clear.     With 

the  religious  opinions  or  practices  of  the  citizens,  he  has  no 

concern.     They  are  not  civil  matters,  which,  alone,  come 

within  his   cocrnizance.     If  a  man's  religious  views  lead 

~     .       .    .  .  . 

him  to  actions  which  injure  society,   those  actions  become 

civil  offences,  and  are  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  magis- 
trate, who  is  appointed  to  guard  the  interests  of  the  civil 
community.  If  a  company  of  Hindoos  should  remove  to 
Boston,  and  should  erect  a  temple  to  Juggernaut,  they 
ought  to  be  protected  in  their  worship,  if  they  confined  them- 
selves to  such  acts,  as  made  no  disturbance,  and  violated 
no  civil  law.  If,  however,  they  should  attempt  to  drag  the 
idol  through  the  streets,  the  magistrates  ought  to  interfere. 
If  they  should  sacrifice  one  of  their  children,  the  perpetra- 
tors ought  to  be  tried  and  punished  for  murder.  If  a  man 
violates  the  third  commandment,  in  such  a  way  as  to  dis- 
turb the  community,  he  may  be  punished,  though  experi- 
ence has  proved,  that  it  is  not  wise  to  enforce  laws  against 
blasphemy.  If  a  man  breaks  the  fourth  commandment,  by 
actions  which  interrupt  or  disturb  the  devotions  of  others, 
the  law  may  restrain  and  punish  him,  not  for  the  breach  of 
the  commandment,  but  for  interfering  with  the  religious 
privileges  of  other  citizens.  If  a  man  chose  to  labor  on 
the  Sabbath,  on  his  farm  or  in  his  shop,  the  law  could  not 
rightfully  interfere  ;  but  if  by  his  labor  he  disturbed  the  de- 
votions of  his  neighbors,  he  might  be  restrained  ;  though, 
here,  too,  experience  proves,  that  the  interference  of  the 
law  is  odious,  and  seldom  beneficial. 

Such  cases  as  those  specified  present  no  difficulty. 
There  is  a  broad,  clear  line,  running  between  religious 
opinions  and  actions.  The  actions,  and  not  the  opinions, 
are  the  subjects  of  law.  If  it  is  alleged,  that  the  opinions 
necessarily  lead  to  illegal  conduct,  the   reply    is,   wait  till 

*  Bloody  Tenet,  p.  214. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  369 

the  actions  are  attempted  or  performed.  They,  then, 
come  within  the  cognizance  of  civil  law.  If,  indeed,  a 
case  could  be  supposed  to  happen,  in  which  a  religious 
sect  avowed  it  as  their  creed,  that  they  were  required,  or 
permitted,  to  murder  their  fellow-citizens,  or  burn  their 
dwellings,  the  magistrates  would  be  bound  to  take  the  ne- 
cessary precautions  to  prevent  such  results.  In  such  a 
case,  the  creed  would  involve  a  criminal  design,  against 
which  the  community  would  have  a  right  to  guard  itself; 
but  the  mere  design  could  not  be  punished ;  just  as  a  pur- 
pose to  commit  murder  cannot  be  punished,  though  it  jus- 
tifies the  magistrate  in  taking  measures  to  prevent  its  exe- 
cution. 

Liberty  of  conscience,  however,  has  some  limitations. 
It  does  not  prohibit  churches  from  excluding  members 
whose  opinions  or  conduct  are  inconsistent  with  the  prin- 
ciples on  which  the  church  is  founded.  The  Bible  makes 
it  the  duty  of  churches  to  maintain  suitable  discipline.  A 
church  is  a  voluntary  society,  founded  on  certain  funda- 
mental rules,  to  which  every  member  assents,  when  he  en- 
ters it.  If  he  adopts  other  principles,  or  in  any  way  vio- 
lates the  rules,  he  makes  himself  liable  to  expulsion  from 
the  church,  as  from  any  other  voluntary  association. 

Neither  does  liberty  of  conscience  imply,  that  a  man 
has  a  claim  to  our  confidence,  our  patronage,  our  votes, 
whatever  may  be  his  religious  opinions.  I  would  not  in- 
trust my  children  to  the  care  of  an  infidel,  but  I  do  not 
deprive  him,  by  such  refusal,  of  any  right;  yet  a  law  for- 
bidding infidels  to  be  employed  as  instructors,  would  be  un- 
just. I  would  not  vote  for  a  man  holding  certain  princi- 
ples, but  I  do  not  thereby  invade  his  privileges,  for  he 
has  no  title  to  my  vote  ;  yet  a  law,  making  men  ineligible 
to  office,  on  account  of  certain  opinions,  would  be  an  in- 
vasion of  their  civil  rights.*     Every  man  must   bear    the 


*  The  laws,  in  some  of  our  States,  which  make  clergymen  ineligi- 
ble to  certain  civil  offices,  are  unjust,  and  inconsistent  with  our  re- 
publican institutions.  Every  man  has  equal  civil  rights,  and  the  ex- 
clusion of  any  class  of  men  from  the  enjoyment  of  any  of  those 
rights,  is  an  odious  proscription.  It  is,  indeed,  desirable,  that  no 
clergyman  should  accept  a  civil  office,  because  his  duties  as  a  minis- 
ter of  the  Gospel  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  occupy  his  mind.  But  he 
has  a  riffht,  as  a  citizen,  to  be  elected  to  any  office ;  and  to  exclude 
32 


370  MEMOIR      OF 

responsibility  of  his  principles.  Those  principles  cannot 
impair  his  positive  rights ;  but  they  may,  and  will,  affect 
the  opinions  and  feelings  of  his  fellow  men.  To  their  con- 
fidence, their  patronage,  or  their  votes,  he  has  no  natural 
right,  and  no  civil  injustice  is  done  to  him,  if  these  are 
withheld. 

We  cannot  prolong  our  remarks  on  this  subject.  It  is 
expounded  and  illustrated,  with  much  ability,  learning  and 
eloquence,  in  the  "  Bloody  Tenet."  Roger  Williams  is 
entitled  to  the  honor  of  being  the  first  writer,  in  modern 
times,  who  clearly  maintained  the  absolute  right  of  every 
man,  to  a  "  full  liberty  in  religious  concernments."  Bishop 
Heber,  in  his  Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  says,  of  the  "  Librrty 
of  Prophesying,"  "  It  is  the  first  attempt  on  record,  to  con- 
ciliate the  minds  of  Christians  to  the  reception  of  a  doc- 
trine, which,  though  now  the  rule  of  action  professed  by 
all  Christian  sects,  was  then,  by  every  sect  alike,  regarded 
as  a  perilous  and  portentous  novelty."* 

Bishop  Heber  has  here  fallen  into  a  mistake.  The 
"  Liberty  of  Prophesying"  was  published  in  1647,  three 
years  after  the  "  Bloody  Tenet,"  in  which  the  principles  of 
religious  liberty  are  more  clearly  and  consistently  main- 
tained, than  in  Taylor's  excellent  work.t  Bishop  Heber 
admits  (p.  222)  that  this  essay  "  can  by  no  means  lay  claim 
to  the  character  which  has  been  assigned  to  it,  of  a  plea 
for  universal  toleration.  The  forbearance  which  he  claims, 
he  claims  for  those  Christians  only,  who  unite  in  the  con- 
fession of  the  Apostles^  creed."  Bishop  Taylor  himself,  at 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  section  of  the  work  referred  to, 
says,  that  "  opinions  are  to  be  dealt  with,"  if  they  tend  to 
disturb  the  public  peace,  and  lead  to  vice.  "If  either 
themselves  or  their  doctrine  do  really  and  without  color  or 

him  is  an  assumption  of  the  power  to  establish  a  national  religion, 
for  if  a  man  may  be  excluded  from  office,  because  he  is  a  minister, 
he  may,  by  the  same  authority,  be  invested  with  office,  because  he 
is  a  minister.  It  is  remarkable,  that  those  who  clamor  so  loudly 
against  church  and  state,  do  not  see  any  inconsistency  in  the  exclu- 
sion of  clergymen,  as  such,  from  office. 
*  Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  Am.  ed.  p.  37. 

t  Mr.  Williams  speaks  of  this  work,  in  his  rejoinder  to  Mr.  Cotton's 
reply:  '' Dr.  J.  Taylor,  what  an  everlasting  monumental  testimony 
did  he  publish  to  this  truth,  in  that  his  excellent  discourse  of  the 
Liberty  of  Prophesying."     pp.  316-17. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  371 

feigned  pretence,  disturb  the  public  peace,  and  just  inter- 
ests, they  are  not  to  be  suffered."  But  the  magistrate  must 
judge,  in  this  case  ;  and,  of  course,  the  door  is  left  wide 
open,  for  persecution.  Roger  Williams,  on  the  contrary, 
contended,  that  *'  a  permission  of  the  most  Paganish, 
Jewish,  Turkish  or  Antichristian  consciences  and  wor- 
ships, be  granted  to  all  men  in  all  nations  and  countries ;" 
and  he  left  no  discretion  to  the  magistrate  to  judge  of 
opinions,  any  further  than  they  should  exhibit  their  effects 
in  action.  His  principles,  too,  claimed  for  men  entire  lib- 
erty of  conscience,  and  not  merely  a  right  to  toleration.  To 
tolerate  implies  the  power  to  interfere,  and  to  regulate  the 
conscience.  If  there  is  power  to  permit,  there  is  power  to 
forbid. 

The  great  Mr.  Locke  advocated  the  principles  of  reli- 
gious liberty  with  distinguished  ability,  in  his  Letters  con- 
cerning Toleration,  written  about  the  year  1690  ;  but  he 
maintained,  by  implication,  that  Papists  ought  not  to  be 
tolerated,  and  expressly  asserted  that  atheists  must  not  re- 
ceive toleration.* 

We  may  here  take  notice  of  an  attempt  to  deprive  Roger 
Williams  and  his  colony  of  their  just  praise,  by  claiming 
for  Lord  Baltimore  the  priority  in  establishing  religious  lib- 
erty in  Maryland.  We  would  not  detract  from  the  merit 
of  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  colony ;  but  the  liberty  estab- 
lished in  Maryland,  though  far  beyond  the  spirit  of  those 
times,  did  not  rise  to  the  Rhode-Island  standard.  It  ex- 
tended only  to  Christians. f     Lord  Baltimore  commenced 

*  Works,  vol.  X.  pp.  45-7. 

t  In  1649,  the  Assembly  of  Maryland  enacted,  "  that  no  persons 
professing  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  shall  be  molested,  in  respect  of 
their  rehgion,  or  in  the  free  exercise  thereof,  or  be  compelled  to  the 
belief  or  practice  of  any  other  religion,  against  their  consent,  so  that 
they  be  not  unfaithful  to  the  proprietary,  or  conspire  against  the  civil 
government.  That  persons  molesting  any  other  in  respect  of  his 
religious  tenets  shall  pay  treble  damages  to  the  party  aggrieved,  and 
twenty  shillings  to  the  proprietary.  That  the  reproaching  any  with 
opprobrious  epithets  of  religious  distinctions,  shall  forfeit  ten  shil- 
lings to  the  persons  aggrieved.  That  any  one  speaking  reproachfully 
against  the  Blessed  Virgin,  or  the  Apostles,  shall  forfeit  five  pounds, 
but  blasphemy  against  God  shall  be  punished  with  death."  Chal- 
mers' Pol.  Ann.  vol.  i.  p.  218.  These  latter  provisions  might  easily 
be  made  terrible  engines  of  persecution,  in  the  hands  of  ill-disposed 
magistrates. 


372  MEMOIR     OF 

his  settlement  in  1634,  and  established  Christianity,  agree- 
ably to  the  old  common  law,  without  allowing  pre-eminence 
to  any  particular  sect.  This  was  wise  and  liberal ;  but 
Mr.  Williams  established  his  colony  in  1636,  two  years 
afterwards,  on  the  broad  principle  of  unlimited  religious 
freedom ;  and  the  Jew,  the  Mahometan  or  the  Hindoo 
might  have  found  a  home  in  Rhode-Island,  and  might 
have  enjoyed  his  opinions  unmolested,  while  he  fulfilled  his 
civil  duties.  The  first  law  of  Maryland,  respecting  reli- 
gious liberty,  was  enacted  in  1649.  In  1647,  at  the  first 
General  Assembly  held  in  Rhode-Island,  under  the  first 
charter,  a  code  of  laws  was  adopted,  relating  exclusively 
to  civil  concerns,  and  concluding  with  these  words  :  "  Oth- 
erwise than  thus,  what  is  herein  forbidden,  all  men  may 
walk  as  their  consciences  persuade  them,  every  one  in  the 
name  of  his  God.  And  let  the  lambs  of  the  3Iost  High 
walk  in  this  colony  ivithout  molestation,  in  the  name  of 
Jehovah  their  God,  forever  a?id  ever."^  This  noble  pro- 
vision was  a  part  of  the  code ;  and  it  was  not  only  prior  in 
date  to  the  law  of  Maryland,  but  it  was  more  liberal,  and 
more  consistent  with  the  rights  of  conscience. 

We  must  now  return  to  Mr.  Williams'  book.  A  reply 
was  written  by  Mr.  Cotton,  and  published  in  London,  in 
1647.  Its  title  was :  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  washed,  and 
made  white,  in  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb,  being  discussed 
and  discharged  of  Blood-Guiltiness,  by  just  Defence. 
Wherein  the  great  Questions  of  this  Time  are  handled, 
viz.  How  far  Liberty  of  Conscience  ought  to  be  given  to 
those  that  truly  fear  God,  and  how  far  restraint  to  turbulent 
and  pestilent  Persons,  that  not  only  rase  the  Foundation  of 
Godliness,  but  disturb  the  civil  Peace,  where  they  live. 
Also,  how  far  the  Magistrates  may  proceed  in  the  Duties 
of  the  first  Table.  And  that  all  Magistrates  ought  to  study 
the  Word  and  Will  of  God,  that  they  may  frame  their  Gov- 
ernment according  to  it.  Discussed,  as  they  are  alleged, 
from  divers  Scriptures,  out  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments. Wherein  also  the  Practice  of  Princes  is  debated, 
together  with  the  Judgment  of  ancient  and  late  Writers, 
of  most  precious  Esteem.  Whereunto  is  added,  a  Reply 
to  Mr.  Williams'  Answer  to  Mr.  Cotton's  Letter.     By  John 

*2  Mass.  His.  Col.  viii.  p.  79. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  373 

Cotton,  Bachelor  in  Divinity,  and  Teacher  of  the  Church 
of  Christ,  at  Boston,  in  New-England.  London,  printed 
by  Matthew  Symmons,  for  Hannah  Allen,  at  the  Crown, 
in  Pope's-Head  Alley.  1647."  The  book  is  a  small 
quarto,  of  339  pages.  It  is  able  and  learned,  but  it  main- 
tains the  right  of  the  magistrate  to  interfere,  for  the  promo- 
tion of  truth,  and  the  suppression  of  error. 

Mr.  Williams  again  took  up  his  pen,  and  published  a  re- 
joinder, entitled,  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  yet  more  Bloody,  by 
Mr.  Cotton's  Endeavor  to  wash  it  white  in  the  Blood  of  the 
Lamb.  Of  whose  precious  Blood,  spilt  in  the  Blood  of  his 
Servants,  and  of  the  Blood  of  Millions  spilt  in  former  and 
later  Wars  for  Conscience  Sake,  that  most  bloody  Tenet 
of  Persecution  for  Cause  of  Conscience,  upon  a  second 
Trial,  is  found  now  more  apparently  and  more  notoriously 
guilty.  In  this  Rejoinder  to  Mr.  Cotton,  are  principally, 
I.  The  Nature  of  Persecution.  II.  The  Power  of  the 
civil  Sword  in  Spirituals,  examined.  III.  The  Parlia- 
ment's Permission  of  Dissenting  Consciences  justified. 
Also,  (as  a  Testimony  to  Mr.  Clarke's  Narrative)  is  added, 
a  Letter  to  Mr.  Endicott,  Governor  of  the  Massachusetts, 
in  New-England.  By  R.  Williams,  of  Providence,  in  New- 
England.  London,  printed  for  Giles  Calvert,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  the  Black-Spread-Eagle,  at  the  West  End  of  Paul's, 
1652."     It  is  a  small  quarto,  of  30:3  pages.* 

This  book  discusses  the  same  topics,  as  its  predecessor, 
with  additional  arguments.  Though  the  controversy  was 
maintained  with  spirit,  yet  the  tone  of  the  book  is  courte- 
ous. Mr.  Williams  says  :  ''  The  Most  Holy  and  All-Seeing 
knows,  how  bitterly  I  resent  [lament]  the  least  difference 
with  Mr.  Cotton,  yea  with  the  least  of  the  followers  of  Jesus, 
of  what  conscience  or  worship  soever."  He  calls  his  book, 
"  An  Examination  of  the  worthily  honored  and  beloved  Mr. 
Cotton's  Reply."  It  would  be  well  if  all  disputants  cher- 
ished the  same  kind  spirit. 

The  book  contains  an  "  Address  to  the  High  Court  of 
Parliament,"  in  which  the  author  prays  them  to  favor  toler- 
ation, and  to  secure  their  personal  salvation. 

*  There  is  a  thin  book,  in  the  Library  of  Harvard  College,  which 
purports  to  be  a  copy  of  this  work,  but  it  contains  only  the  Preface 
and  Dedicatory„Epistles. 

32* 


374  MEMOIROF 

There  are  also  two  addresses,  the  one  ''  to  the  several 
respective  General  Courts,  especially  that  of  the  Massachu- 
setts, in  New-England,"  and  the  other  "To  the  Merciful 
and  Compassionate  Reader." 

The  body  of  the  work  is  written,  like  the  Bloody  Tenet, 
in  the  form  of  a  "Conference  between  Truth  and  Peace," 
and  is  divided  into  chapters,  in  each  of  which,  for  the  most 
part,  a  corresponding  chapter  of  Mr.  Cotton's  book  is  ex- 
amined. 

At  the  close  of  the  examination,  is  a  letter  to  Governor 
Endicott,  of  Massachusetts,  in  which  Mr.  Williams  ex- 
presses great  affection  for  him,  alludes  to  former  days,  and 
exhibitions  of  a  different  spirit,  intimates  that  the  love  of 
honor  had  affected  the  Governor,  beseeches  him  to  adopt 
and  practise  the  principles  of  toleration,  and  assures  him, 
that  if  he  should  follow  out  his  principles  he  must  proceed 
to  bloodshed.  This  prediction  was  soon  after  fulfilled  in  the 
execution  of  the  duakers. 

In  an  appendix,  is  an  address  "To  the  Clergy  of  the  four 
great  Parties  (professing  the  name  of  Christ  Jesus)  in  Eng- 
land, Scotland  and  Ireland,  viz.  the  Popish,  Prelatical, 
Presbyterian  and  Independent."  It  is  mild  and  respectful, 
though  it  accuses  them  all  of  persecuting  each  other,  when 
they  possessed  the  power.  He  says :  "  Just  like  two  men, 
whom  I  have  known  break  out  to  blows  and  wrestling,  so 
have  the  Protestant  Bishops  wrestled  with  the  Popish,  and 
the  Popish  with  the  Protestant,  the  Presbyterian  with  the 
Independent,  and  the  Independent  with  the  Presbyterian. 
And  our  chronicles  and  experiences  have  told  this  nation 
and  the  world,  how  he  whose  turn  it  is  to  be  brought  under, 
hath  ever  felt  a  heavy,  wrathful  hand  of  an  unbrotherly  and 
unchristian  persecution,"  (p.  316.)  He  says,  that  they  all 
pleaded  for  freedom  when  they  were  persecuted,  and  adds, 
"What  excellent  subscriptions  to  this  soul  freedom  are  in- 
terwoven in  many  passages  of  the  late  King's  book  (if 
his.)"* 


*  Alluding  to  the  ''  Eikon  Basilike,"  a  book,  which  purported  to 
have  been  written  by  Charles  I.  and  which,  it  is  thought,  contributed 
to  the  restoration  of  his  son.  It  was,  however,  an  imposition,  Dr. 
Gauden  being  the  real  author.  Mr.  Williams,  it  seems  had  sagacity 
enough  to  doubt  its  authenticity.  Milton  assailed  it  with  his  "  Eico- 
noclastes." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  375 

He  alludes  to  the  ejected  clergy,  and  makes  the  follow- 
ing  appeal,  which  is  very  honorable  to  his  feelings  : — ''  I 
make  another  humble  plea  (and  that,  I  believe,  with  all  the 
reason  and  justice  in  the  world)  that  such  who  are  ejected, 
undone,  impoverished,  might,  some  way,  from  the  state  or 
you,  receive  relief  and  succor  ;  considering  that  the  very 
nation's  constitution  hath  occasioned  parents  to  train  up, 
and  persons  to  give  themselves  to  studies  (though,  in  truth, 
but  in  a  way  of  trading  and  bargaining  before  God)  yet  it 
is  according  to  the  custom  of  the  nation,  who  ought,  there- 
fore, to  share  also  in  the  fault  of  such  parents  and  minis- 
ters, who,  in  all  changes,  are  ejected."  IIow  different  is 
this  language  from  that  of  a  rash,  proscriptive  reformer, 
who,  in  his  zeal  for  what  he  esteems  right,  disregards  every 
consideration  of  justice  or  humanity  !  The  clergy  whom 
Mr.  Williams  had  especially  in  view  were  the  Episcopal 
ministers,  who  had  been  expelled  from  their  benefices.  He 
did  not  believe  them,  in  general,  to  be  fit  to  preach,  but  he 
wished  them  to  be  treated  with  kindness  and  liberality. 


376  MEMOIR     OF 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 


Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's — the  ministry — controversy  with 
George  Fox — other  writings — character  as  a  writer — his  general 
character. 

In  the  same  year,  1652,  in  which  the  last  mentioned 
book  was  published,  Mr.  Williams  printed  a  pamphlet,  with 
the  title,  "  The  Hireling  Ministry  none  of  Christ's,  or  a 
Discourse  touching  the  Propagating  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
Jesus.  Humbly  presented  to  such  pious  and  honorable 
hands,  whom  the  present  debate  thereof  concerns.  By 
Roger  Williams,  of  Providence,  in  New-England.  London. 
Printed  in  the  second  month."  It  is  a  small  quarto,  of  thirty- 
six  pages.  No  copy  is  known  to  the  writer  to  exist  in  this 
country,  except  in  the  Library  of  the  American  Antiqua- 
rian Society,  in  Worcester,  which  contains  a  duplicate. 
One  of  the  copies  was  loaned  to  the  author,  by  the  polite- 
ness of  the  Librarian. 

This  pamphlet  is  valuable,  because  it  contains  a  more 
clear  exposition  of  Mr.  Williams'  views  respecting  the 
ministry,  than  any  other  of  his  works.  It  begins  with  an 
*'  Epistle  Dedicatory,  to  all  such  honorable  and  pious  hands, 
whom  the  present  debate  touching  the  propagating  of 
Christ's  Gospel  concerns ;  and  to  all  such  gentle  Bereans, 
who,  with  ingenious  civility,  desire  to  search,  whether 
what's  presented  concerning  Christ  Jesus  be  so  or  not." 
In  this  epistle,  the  author  says,  "  I  have  not  been  altogether 
a  stranger  to  the  learning  of  the  Egyptians,  and  have  trod 
the  hopefullest  paths  to  worldly  preferment,  which,  for 
Christ's  sake,  I  have  forsaken.  I  know  what  it  is  to  study, 
to  preach,  to  be  an  elder,  to  be  applauded,  and  yet  also 
what  it  is  to  tug  at  the  oar,  to  dig  with  the  spade  and 
plough,  and  to  labor  and  travel  day  and  night,  amongst 
English,  amongst  barbarians." 

The  chief  purpose  of  the  work  is,  to  oppose  a  legal 
establishment  of  religion,  and  the  compulsory  support  of 
the  clergy. 

The  principal  points  maintained  are  three  :  1.  There  is 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  377 

now  no  ministry,  which  is  authorized  to  preach  to  the 
heathen,  or  to  exercise  pastoral  functions.  2.  There  ought 
to  be  a  perfect  liberty  to  all  men  to  maintain  such  worship 
and  ministry  as  they  please.  3.  Ministers  ought  be  sup- 
ported, by  voluntary  donations,  and  not  by  legal  provision. 

1.  On  the  first  point,  he  partially  stated  his  views,  in  his 
preceding  works  on  the  Bloody  Tenet;  but  in  this  pamphlet, 
he  expounds  them  more  fully.  His  opinions  appear  to  have 
rested  entirely  on  a  misconception  of  passages  in  the  Reve- 
lations. He  believed,  that  the  "  white  troopers"  mentioned 
in  the  6th  and  19th  chapters  of  Revelations,  were  the  true 
ministers,  and  that  they  were  utterly  routed,  till  after  the 
slaying  of  the  witnesses  and  their  resurrection.  ''  The 
apostolical  commission  and  ministry  is  long  since  interrupt- 
ed and  discontinued,  yet  ever  since  the  beast  Antichrist 
rose,  the  Lord  Jesus  hath  stirred  up  the  ministry  of  pro- 
phecy, who  must  continue  their  witness  and  prophecy,  until 
their  witness  be  finished,  and  slaughters,  probably  near 
approaching,  be  accomplished."  "  In  the  poor  small  span 
of  my  life,  I  desired  to  have  been  a  diligent  and  constant 
observer,  and  have  been  myself  many  ways  engaged,  in 
city,  in  country,  in  court,  in  schools,  in  universities,  in 
churches,  in  Old  and  New-England ;  and  yet  cannot,  in 
the  holy  presence  of  God,  bring  in  the  result  of  a  satisfy- 
ing discovery,  that  either  the  begetting  ministry  of  the 
apostles  or  messengers  to  the  churches,  or  the  feeding  and 
nourishing  ministry  of  pastors  and  teachers,  according  to 
the  first  institution  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  are  yet  restored  and 
extant." — p.  4. 

In  his  "Bloody  Tenet  made  more  Bloody,"  he  says,  that 
''  Christ  Jesus  sends  out  preachers  three  ways  :  1st.  In  his 
own  person,  as  the  twelve  and  seventy.  2dly.  By  his  visible, 
kingly  power,  left  in  the  hands  of  his  true  churches,  and 
the  officers  and  governors  thereof  3dly.  Christ  Jesus,  as 
King  of  the  Church  and  Head  of  his  body,  during  the  dis- 
tractions of  his  house  and  kingdom,  under  Antichrist's 
apostacy,  immediately  by  his  own  Holy  Spirit,  stirs  up  and 
sends  out  those  fiery  witnesses  to  testify  against  Antichrist 
and  his  several  abominations." — p.  99. 

He  says,  in  the  work  before  us :  "  All  (of  what  rank 
soever)  that  have  knowledge  and  utterance  of  heavenly 
mysteries,  and  therein  are  the  Lord's  prophets  and  witnesses 


378  MEMOIR     OF 

against  Antichrist,  must  prophesy  against  false  Christs, 
false  faith,  false  love,  false  joy,  false  worship  and  ministra- 
tions, false  hope  and  false  Heaven,  which  poor  souls  in 
a  golden  dream  expect  and  look  for. 

"  This  prophecy  ought  to  be  (chiefly)  exercised  among 
the  saints,  in  the  companies,  meetings  and  assemblies  of 
the  fellow-mourners,  and  witnesses  against  the  falsehoods 
of  Antichrist.  If  any  come  in  (as  1  Cor:  14,)  yea,  if  they 
come  to  catch,  God  will  graciously  more  or  less  vouchsafe 
to  catch  them,  if  he  intends  to  save  them. 

*'  But  for  the  going  out  to  the  nations,  cities,  towns,  as 
to  the  nations,  cities,  and  towns  of  the  world,  unconverted, 
until  the  downfal  of  the  Papacy,  (Rev.  18,)  and  so  the 
mounting  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  his  white  troopers  again 
(Rev.  19,  &-C.)  for  the  going  out  to  preach  upon  hire  ;  for 
the  going  out  to  convert  sinners,  and  yet  to  hold  commu- 
nion with  them  as  saints  in  prayer  ;  for  the  going  out  with- 
out such  a  powerful  call  from  Christ,  as  the  twelve  and 
the  seventy  had,  or  without  such  suitable  gifts  as  the  first 
ministry  was  furnished  with,  and  this  especially  without  a 
due  knowledge  of  the  prophecies  to  be  fulfilled,  I  have 
no  faith  to  act,  nor  in  the  actings  and  ministries  of  others." 
—pp.  21,22. 

He  avers,  nevertheless,  that  he  had  strong  desires  to  labor 
for  the  good  of  all  men  :  ''  By  the  merciful  assistance  of  the 
Most  High,  I  have  desired  to  labor  in  Europe,  in  Amer- 
ica, with  English,  with  Barbarians,  yea,  and  also,  I  have 
longed  after  some  trading  with  the  Jews  themselves,  for 
whose  hard  measure,  I  fear  the  nations  and  England  hath 
yet  a  score  to  pay." — p.  13.  He  states  his  opinion,  how- 
ever, that  no  remarkable  conversion  of  the  nations  is  yet 
to  be  expected,  because  smoke  filled  the  temple  till  Anti- 
christ was  overthrown.     Rev.  15  :  8. 

In  the  ''  Bloody  Tenet  made  more  Bloody,"  he  says,  on 
this  subject,  that  though  he  approved  endeavors  to  teach 
the  Indians,  yet,  "  that  any  of  the  ministers  spoken  of  are 
furnished  with  true  apostolical  commission  (Matt.  28,)  I 
see  not,  for  these  reasons :  1st.  The  ordinary  ministry,  is 
not  the  apostolical,  Eph.  4.  1  Cor.  12.  2dly.  The  churches 
of  New-England  are  not  pure  churches.  3dly.  Men  can- 
not preach  to  the  Indians  in  any  propriety  of  their  speech 
or  language." — p.  219. 

These  extracts  sufiiciently  explain  his  views.     It  is  re- 


ROGER    WILLIAMS.  379 

markable,  that  a  man,  whose  mind  was  so  strong  and  clear, 
on  most  subjects,  should  become  perplexed  with  such  dif- 
ficulties, in  relation  to  the  ministry  and  the  church.  That 
the  passages  in  the  Apocalypse,  to  which  he  refers,  do  not 
authorize  his  conclusions,  we  need  not  attempt  to  prove. 
He  might  well  deny,  that  most  of  the  communities  which 
then  claimed  to  be  Christian  churches,  were  entitled  to  the 
name  ;  and  might,  with  truth,  maintain,  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  those  who  professed,  at  that  time,  to  be  ministers 
of  Christ,  were  not  sanctioned  by  his  commission.  But  it 
did  not  follow,  that  no  church,  formed  according  to  the 
models  furnished  in  the  New  Testament,  then  existed,  and 
that  no  true  ministers  could  be  found.  A  company  of  true 
believers,  united  in  one  society,  for  worship,  for  mutual 
watchfulness,  for  the  maintenance  of  discipline,  and  for  the 
celebration  of  the  ordinances,  is  a  church.  A  pious  man, 
who  can  teach  others,  and  who  is  moved,  by  a  proper 
conviction  of  duty,  and  is  authorized  by  a  church,  to  preach 
the  Gospel,  is  a  duly  appointed  minister.  It  is  manifest, 
from  the  tenor  of  the  New  Testament,  that  an  order  of 
ministers  was  intended  to  be  continued.  The  same  ends 
for  which  the  first  ministers  were  appointed, — the  conver- 
sion of  the  impenitent,  and  the  edification  of  believers, — 
still  require,  that,  ministers  be  employed  in  the  work  of 
spreading  and  upholding  Christianity.  The  same  means 
are  to  be  employed, — the  declaration  of  divine  truth.  The 
supernatural  gifts  of  the  first  ministers  were  necessary,  as 
an  attestation  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  ;  but  it  was  not 
by  the  miracles,  but  by  the  truth,  accompanied  by  the  in- 
fluences of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  men  were  converted.  The 
experience  of  modern  missions  demonstrates,  that  men  can 
learn  to  speak  "  with  propriety"  the  languages  of  the  heathen, 
and  that  the  Gospel,  when  preached  now,  in  Burmah,  or 
in  Hindostan,  or  in  Greenland,  or  in  our  western  forests,  is 
"  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believ- 
eth."     Rom.  1  :  16. 

But  it  is  needless  to  argue  a  point,  so  clear  as  this.  Mr. 
Williams'  erroneous  views  on  the  subject  before  us,  did  not 
affect  his  feelings  on  the  great  question  of  religious  liberty. 
He  was  willing,  that  others  should  establish  churches  and 
maintain  ministers,  if  they  chose.  This  is  the  second  point 
which  we  mentioned. 


380  M  E  RI  O  I  R     OF 

2.  He  says,  "  I  desire  not  that  liberty  to  myself,  which 
I  would  not  freely  and  impartially  weigh  out  to  all  the  con- 
sciences of  the  world  beside.  And,  therefore,  I  do  humbly 
conceive,  that  it  is  the  will  of  the  Most  High,  and  the  ex- 
press and  absolute  duty  of  the  civil  powers,  to  proclaim  an 
absolute  freedom  in  all  the  three  nations,  yea,  in  all  the 
world,  (were  their  power  so  large)  that  each  town  and  divis- 
ion of  people,  yea,  and  each  person,  may  freely  enjoy  what 
worship,  what  ministry,  what  maintenance  to  afford  them, 
their  soul  desireth." — p.  19.  In  a  subsequent  page,  he 
adds :  ''  All  these  consciences  (yea,  the  very  consciences 
of  the  Papists,  Jews,  &lc.  as  I  have  proved  at  large  in  my 
answer  to  Master  Cotton's  washings)  ought  freely  and  im- 
partially to  be  permitted  their  several  respective  worships, 
their  ministers  of  worships,  and  what  way  of  maintaining 
them,  they  freely  choose." 

3.  On  the  subject  of  maintenance,  he  strongly  objects 
to  a  *'  stated  salary,"  by  which  he  evidently  means  a  sti- 
pend, fixed  and  raised  by  law.  He  contends,  that  minis- 
ters ought  to  be  supported,  like  the  first  preachers,  by  vol- 
untary donations.  He  does  not  fully  explain  his  views,  but 
it  does  not  appear,  that  he  had  any  objection  to  a  fixed 
sum,  or  to  any  particular  mode  of  collecting  it,  provided 
that  it  was  voluntarily  paid.  The  compulsory  maintenance 
of  the  clergy,  by  tithes,  and  other  modes  of  taxation,  with- 
out any  concurrence  of  the  persons  taxed,  was  the  system 
against  which  he  argued.  He  insisted,  nevertheless,  that 
ministers  are  entitled  to  a  maintenance,  and  that  the  mem- 
bers of  a  church  may  be  compelled,  by  the  proper  use  of 
spiritual  power,  to  perform  their  duty,  in  contributing  to 
the  support  of  a  minister.  In  the  "  Bloody  Tenet,"  (p. 
168)  he  says  :  "  To  that  Scripture,  Gal.  6:6.  '  Let  him 
that  is  taught  in  the  word  make  him  that  teacheth  partake 
of  all  his  goods,'  I  answer,  that  teaching  was  of  persons 
converted,  believers  entered  into  the  school  and  family  of 
Christ,  the  Church,  which  Church,  being  rightly  gathered, 
is  also  rightly  invested  with  the  power  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  to 
force  every  soul  therein  by  spiritual  weapons  and  penalties 
to  do  its  duty." 

The  doctrines  of  Roger  Williams,  on  this  subject,  as  well 
as  on  the  general  principle  of  liberty  of  conscience,  are  rap- 
idly gaining  the  victory  over  the  old  system.  A  legal  pro- 
vision for  the  clergy,  by  which  all  the  citizens  are  compelled 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  381 

to  pay  for  the  support  of  religious  teachers,  whether  they 
choose  to  hear  them  or  not,  is  unjust  in  principle,  and 
pernicious  in  practice  ;  producing  discontent  and  odium 
among  the  people,  and  tending  to  introduce  mere  worldly 
and  mercenary  men  into  the  ministry.  Its  effects,  even  in 
Massachusetts,  have  convinced  men,  of  all  parties,  of  its 
inexpediency.  It  is  a  coincidence,  which  the  author 
views  with  pleasure,  that,  while  this  book  has  been  passing 
through  the  press,  the  citizens  of  Massachusetts  have 
adopted  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  which,  in  its 
results,  will  sweep  away  the  last  relic  of  the  old  system. 
The  principles  of  Roger  Williams  will  soon  be  triumph- 
antly established  in  Massachusetts,  and  there  will  not  be, 
even  in  theory,  any  dominant  and  favored  sect,  in  this  ven- 
erable commonwealth.  In  every  other  State  in  our  Union, 
entire  religious  freedom  is  enjoyed.  In  England,  the  march 
is  onward.  In  a  few  years,  her  establishment  must  fall, 
and  religion  be  placed,  where  it  should  be,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Saviour,  drawing  her  revenues  from  the  wil- 
ling hands  of  his  followers,  and  renewing  her  strength  and 
beauty,  by  taking  her  appropriate  station,  like  the  angel  in 
the  sun,  high  above  the  contaminations  of  the  earth. 

The  book  before  us  ends,  with  what  the  author  calls  the 
^'  swuma  totalis  :" 

"  1st.  The  civil  state  is  bound,  before  God,  to  take  off 
that  bond  and  yoke  of  soul  oppression  [the  national  estab- 
lishment] and  to  proclaim  free  and  impartial  liberty  to  all 
the  people  of  the  three  nations,  to  choose  and  maintain 
what  worship  and  ministry  their  souls  and  consciences  are 
persuaded  of. 

"  2dly.  The  civil  state  is  humbly  to  be  implored  to  pro- 
vide, in  their  high  wisdom,  for  the  security  of  all  these  re- 
spective consciences,  in  their  respective  meetings,  assem- 
blings, worshippings,  preachings,  disputings,  fcc.  and  that 
civil  peace,  and  the  beauty  of  civility  and  humanity,  be 
maintained  among  the  chief  opposers  and  dissenters. 

"3dly.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  that  are  in  authority,  and  of 
all  that  are  able,  to  countenance,  and  encourage  and  sup- 
ply all  such  true  volunteers,  as  give  and  devote  themselves 
to  the  service  and  ministry  of  Christ  Jesus  in  any  kind  ; 
although  it  be  also  the  duty,  and  will  be  the  practice,  of  all 
such,  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  sends  upon  any  work  of 
33 


382  MEMOIR      OF 

Christ's,  rather  to  work,  as  Paul  did  among  the  Corinthi- 
ans and  Thessalonians,  than  the  work  and  service  of  their 
Lord  and  Master  should  be  neglected."     pp.  29,  30. 

Mr.  Williams  is  said  to  have  published,  in  London,  in 
the  same  year,  1652,  a  work,  entitled,  "  Experiments  of 
Spiritual  Life  and  Health,  and  their  Preservatives."  Of 
this  book,  no  copy  has  come  to  our  knowledge. 

The  only  remaining  printed  book  of  Mr.  Williams,  is 
his  narrative  of  the  dispute  with  the  Quakers.  It  is  enti- 
tled, "George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,  or  an  Offer 
of  Disputation  on  fourteen  Proposals,  made  this  last  Sum- 
mer, 1672,  (so  called,)  unto  G.  Fox,  then  present  on 
Rhode-Island,  in  New-England,  by  R.  W.  As  also  how 
(G.  Fox  slily  departing)  the  Disputation  went  on,  being 
managed  three  Days  at  Newport,  on  Rhode-Island,  and 
one  day  at  Providence,  between  John  Stubs,  John  Burnet, 
and  William  Edmundson,  on  the  one  Part,  and  R.  W.  on 
the  other.  In  which  many  Quotations  out  of  G.  Fox  and 
Ed.  Burrowes'  Book  in  Folio  are  alleged.  With  an  Ap- 
pendix, of  some  Scores  of  G.  F.  his  simple  and  lame  An- 
swers to  his  Opposites,  in  that  Book,  quoted  and  replied  to, 
by  R.  W.  of  Providence,  in  N.  E.  Boston.  Printed  by 
John  Foster,  1676."  It  is  a  small  quarto  volume,  of  327 
pages.  Its  execution  is  creditable  to  the  American  press, 
at  that  early  day. 

The  book  is  dedicated  to  the  King,  Charles  11.  in  a  cour- 
teous epistle,  in  which  Mr.  Williams  calls  New-England  a 
*'  miserable,  cold,  howling  wilderness,"  yet  says,  that  God 
"  hath  made  it  His  glory,  your  Majesty's  glory,  and  a  glory 
to  the  English  and  Protestant  name." 

There  is  also  an  epistle  "  To  the  People  called  Qua- 
kers," in  which  the  author  says,  ''  From  my  childhood, 
(now  above  threescore  years)  the  Father  of  Lights  and  Mer- 
cies touched  my  soul  with  a  love  to  himself,  to  his  only- 
begotten,  the  true  Lord  Jesus,  to  his  Holy  Scriptures,  &/C. 
His  infinite  wisdom  hath  given  me  to  see  the  city,  court  and 
country,  the  schools  and  universities  of  my  native  country, 
to  converse  with  some  Turks,  Jews,  Papists,  and  all  sorts 
of  Protestants,  and  by  books,  to  know  the  affairs  and  relig- 
ions of  all  countries,  &c.  My  conclusion  is,  that  Be  of 
good  cheer,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  (Matt.  9)  is  one  of 
the  joyfullest  sounds  that  ever  came  to  poor  sinful  ears." 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  S83 

He  says,  "  I  have  used  some  sharp,  scripture  language, 
but  not  (as  commonly  you  do)  passionately  and  unjustly." 

He  adds  a  letter  *'  to  those  many  learned  and  pious  men 
whom  G.  Fox  hath  so  sillily  and  scornfully  answered  in  his 
book  in  folio,  especially  to  those  whose  names  I  have  been 
bold  to  mention  in  the  Narrative  and  Appendix,  Mr.  Rich- 
ard Baxter,  Mr.  John  Owen,  &c."  In  this  letter  is  this 
kind  and  liberal  sentence  :  "  As  to  matters  in  dispute  be- 
tween yourselves  and  me,  I  willingly  omitted  them,  as 
knowing,  that  many  able  and  honest  seamen,  in  their  ob- 
servations of  this  sun  (one  picture  of  Christ  Jesus)  differ 
sometimes  in  their  reckonings,  though  uprightly  aiming  at, 
and  bound  for,  one  port  and  harbor." 

Then  follows  the  main  body  of  the  work,  containing  an 
interesting  account  of  the  dispute,  and  a  long  and  tedious 
examination  of  numerous  points  of  doctrine,  which  Mr. 
Fox  and  his  friends  maintained.  We  cannot  present  an 
analysis  of  the  book.  It  would  afford  neither  profit  nor 
pleasure.  Much  of  the  discussion  is  a  dispute  about  dark 
questions,  and  many  of  Mr.  Williams'  objections  arose, 
probably,  from  the  uncouth  phraseology  with  which  Mr, 
Fox  obscured  his  real  meaning.  Mr.  Williams  might 
easily  misunderstand  his  opponents,  while  they  insisted  so 
strongly  on  the  teachings  of  the  inward  light,  on  the  for- 
mation of  Christ  in  the  soul,  and  other  similar  doctrines. 
Mr.  Fox,  too,  assumed  some  positions,  which  none  of  the 
Friends  would  now  approve.  He  justified,  for  example, 
the  abominable  conduct  of  the  females  who  appeared 
naked  in  the  streets,  and  contended  that  they  acted  under 
divine  inspiration.  Mr.  Williams  said,  '^  You  shall  never 
persuade  souls  (not  bewitched)  that  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God 
should  persuade  your  women  and  maidens  to  appear  in 
public  streets  and  assemblies  stark  naked."  Mr.  Fox  re- 
plied, "  We  do  believe  thee  in  that  dark,  persecuting, 
bloody  spirit  that  thou  and  the  New-England  priests  are 
bewitched  in,  you  cannot  believe,  that  you  are  naked  from 
God,  and  his  clothing,  and  blind.  And  therefore  hath  the 
Lord  in  his  power  moved  some  of  his  sons  and  daughters 
to  go  naked;  yea,  and  they  did  tell  them,  in  Oliver's  days, 
and  the  Long  Parliament's,  that  God  would  strip  them  of 
their  Church  profession,  and.  of  their  power,  as  naked  as 
they  were.     And   so  they  were  true  prophets  and  prophet- 


384  MEMOIR      OF 

esses  to  the  nation,  as  many  sober  men  have  confessed 
since,  though  thou  and  the  old  persecuting  priests  in  New- 
England  remain  in  your  blindness  and  nakedness."*  Mr. 
Williams  might  well  abhor  Mr.  Fox's  principles,  if  this 
had  been  a  fair  specimen  of  their  tendency. 

Mr.  Williams  was  accused  by  Mr.  Fox  and  others  of  ad- 
vocating persecution,  because  he  condemned  the  use  of 
21iee  and  Thou  to  superiors,  as  uncivil,  and  declared,  that 
''  a  due  and  moderate  restraint  and  punishing  of  these  in- 
civilities (though  pretending  conscience)  is  as  far  from 
persecution  (properly  so  called)  as  that  it  is  a  duty  and 
command  of  God  unto  all  mankind,  first  in  families,  and 
thence  unto  all  mankind  societies."  p.  200.  Mr.  Wil- 
liams did  not  reason  on  this  point  with  his  usual  clearness. 
If  a  man  is  conscientious  about  using  the  terms  Thee  and 
Thou,  and  wearing  his  hat,  he  ought  to  be  allowed  to  do 
so,  because  these  customs  do  not  necessarily  interfere  with 
any  other  man's  rights.  But  Mr.  Williams  viewed  them  as 
offences  against  civil  decorum,  and  thought  that  they  should 
be  restrained  and  punished  as  such.  He  cannot,  therefore, 
be  justly  accused  of  inconsistency  in  relation  to  his  princi- 
ples of  religious  liberty.  He  probably  had  in  his  view  the 
offensive  language,  which  some  of  the  persons  called  Qua- 
kers used  toward  magistrates  and  others. f  It  is,  indeed,  a 
curious  circumstance,  that  many  of  the  early  Quakers 
were  remarkable  for  a  spirit  of  bitter  railing.  Mr.  Baxter 
says  :  "  The  Quakers,  in  their  shops,  when  I  go  along  Lon- 
don streets,  say,  '  Alas !  poor  man,  thou  art  yet  in  dark- 
ness.' They  have  oft  come  into  the  congregation,  when  I 
had  liberty  to  preach  Christ's  Gospel,  and  cried  out  against 
me  as  a  deceiver  of  the  people.  They  have  followed  me 
home,  crying  out  in  the  streets,  '  The  day  of  the  Lord  is 
coming,  when  thou  shalt  perish  as  a  deceiver.'  They  have 
stood  in  the  market-place,  and  under  my  window  year  after 
year,  crying  out  to  the  people,  '  Take  heed  of  your  priests, 
they  deceive  your  souls !'  and  if  they  saw  any  one  wear  a 
lace  or  a  rich  clothing,  they  cried  out  to  me,  '  These  are 
the   fruit   of  thy    ministry.'  "  |       Similar  scenes  were  ex- 


*  N.  E.  Firebrand  Quenched,  p   9. 

tSee  Humphrey  Norton's  letter  to  Governor  Prince,  of  Plymouth, 
ackus,  vol.  i.  p.  322.  i  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  689. 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  385 

hibited  in  this  country.  There  was  a  remarkable  con- 
trast, at  that  time,  between  the  language  and  the  general 
demeanor  of  the  Quakers.  They  used  no  force,  and  made 
no  resistance,  but  they  uttered,  without  stint,  the  most  vir- 
ulent epithets.  It  might  seem,  that  they  had  literally 
adopted  the  counsel  of  Minerva  to  Achilles — not  to  un- 
sheathe the  sword,  but  to  reproach  their  adversaries  with 
words : 

"  M-/jo£  |<<p05  '/ajcso  yciipi^ 

Mr.  Williams,  in  writing  his  book,  caught  some  of  the 
same  spirit,  and  used  a  style  of  contemptuous  bitterness, 
which  was  not  natural  to  him.  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Burn- 
yeat  replied  in  the  same  strain,  though  with  more  coarse- 
ness. Their  book  is  a  quarto,  of  489  pages.  It  is  en- 
titled, "  A  New-England  Firebrand  Quenched,"  &/C. 
They  filled  twenty-four  pages  with  words  and  phrases 
culled  from  Mr.  Williams'  book,  with  this  preface  :  "  A 
catalogue  of  R.  W's.  envious,  malicious,  scornful,  railing 
stuff,  false  accusations  and  blasphemies,  which  he  foully 
and  unchristianlike  hath  scattered  and  dispersed  through 
his  book."  At  the  end  are  two  letters,  the  one  from  Mr. 
Coddington,  and  the  other  from  Mr.  Richard  Scott,  in 
both  of  which  Mr.  Williams  is  spoken  of  with  much  harsh- 
ness. 

But  we  have  done  with  these  books.  It  would  be  well, 
for  the  reputation  of  all  the  parties,  if  they  could  be  for- 
gotten. 

We  have  thus  reviewed  all  the  printed  books  of  Mr. 
Williams,  of  which  we  have  been  able  to  obtain  copies. 
Two  or  three  treatises,  which  he  wrote,  were  not,  it  is  pre- 
sumed, printed.  Among  these,  was  the  essay  concerning 
the  patent,  which  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  magistrates 
in  Massachusetts,  before  his  banishment. t  At  the  end  of 
his  Key,  he  says,  "  I  have  further  treated  of  these  natives 
of  New-England,  and  that  great  point  of  their  conversion, 
in  a  little  additional  discourse  to  this."  This  discourse 
vre  have  never  seen.  In  the  letter  to  Governor  Bradstreet, 
(page  353  of  this  volume)  Mr.  Williams   speaks  of  a   col- 

*  Iliad,  A.  1.  210,  211.         t  See  pages  57  and  58  of  this  volume. 
33* 


386  MEMOIR      OF 

lection  of  heads  of  discourses  preached  to  the  "  scattered 
English  at  Narraganset,"  and  which  Mr.  Williams  re- 
quests the  Governor  to  assist  him  in  printing.  It  does 
not  appear  that  it  was  printed.  Dr.  Holmes,  (Annals,  vol. 
i.  p.  411)  says,  '*  In  the  Prince  Collection  of  MSS.  are 
heads  of  discourses,  which  he  delivered  to  the  Narragan- 
set Indians."  An  ineffectual  search  has  been  made  among 
the  MSS.  referred  to,  for  these  heads  of  discourses,  which 
may  have  been  mislaid.  They  may  be  the  same  as  those 
mentioned  in  the  letter  to  Governor  Bradstreet. 

There  is  said  to  be  a  MS.  of  one  hundred  and  six  quarto 
pages,  in  the  library  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
entitled,  "  Esau  and  Jacob's  Mystical  Harmony,"  &c.  writ- 
ten in  1666,  with  a  memorandum  in  Dr.  Stiles'  hand- 
writing, "  I  suppose  Roger  Williams."  We  have  not  had 
an  opportunity  to  examine  this  manuscript. 

The  letters  of  Mr.  Williams  were  very  numerous.  He 
held  an  extensive  correspondence.  Many  of  these  letters 
are  preserved,  and  many  others  are  referred  to,  which 
have  perished. 

Of  the  character  of  Mr.  Williams,  as  a  writer,  those  who 
have  read  the  letters  and  extracts  from  his  books,  contain- 
ed in  this  volume,  can  form  a  judgment.  His  style  is  very 
original  and  characteristic.  It  is  the  outpouring  of  a  full 
and  ardent  mind,  too  intent  on  the  thought,  to  be  very 
careful  of  the  expression.  It  is,  consequently,  not  always 
correct ;  but  it  is  always  clear  and  forcible.  He  exhibits 
ample  learning,  and  quotations  from  the  classics  are  scat- 
tered through  his  writings,  in  an  easy  and  natural  manner. 
He  was  very  familiar  with  the  Scriptures,  which  he  read 
in  the  original  languages  ;  though  he,  like  most  theological 
writers  of  that  time,  was  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the 
laws  of  interpretation.  He  had  a  very  active  imagination, 
and  his  style  is  full  of  figures,  always  striking,  and  often 
happy,  but  not  uniformly  selected  and  applied,  with  a  pure 
taste.  This  liveliness  of  his  fancy  made  him  fond  of  puns 
and  quaint  expressions,  which  he  used,  however,  with  no 
design  to  amuse  the  reader,  but  to  illustrate  and  enforce 
his  meaning.  He  had,  indeed,  a  poetical  mind,  and  some 
passages  of  his  works  remind  us  of  the  magnificent  periods 
of  Milton  and  Taylor.  The  specimens  of  his  verses  in  his 
Key,  though  superior  to  much  of  the  contemporary  rhyme 


ROGER     WILLIAMS.  387 

contained  in  Morton's  Memorial  and  Mather's  Magnalia, 
are  inferior,  in  real  poetic  feeling  and  expression,  to  some 
paragraphs  of  his  prose  works.  He  was  one  of  those  poets 
mentioned  by  Wordsworth, 

'-  That  are  sown 
By  nature  j  men  endowed  with  highest  gifts, 
The  vision  and  the  facuhy  divine, 
Yet  wanting  the  accomphshment  of  verse." 

His  writings,  in  short,  like  those  of  all  great  minds, 
are  a  reflection  of  his  own  character,  and  are  marked  with 
his  excellencies  and  his  faults. 

We  must  now  close  this  book  with  a  few  observations 
concerning  his  character.  It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  mi- 
nutely on  this  point,  for  no  man  was  ever  more  transparent ; 
and  those  who  have  traced  his  history,  have  had  ample 
means  of  forming  their  own  judgment. 

His  mental  faculties  were  of  a  high  order.  His  mind 
was  strong,  original  and  independent.  The  clearness  with 
which  he  discerned  the  true  principles  of  religious  liberty, 
and  the  steadiness  with  which  he  maintained  them,  in 
opposition  to  the  general  theory  and  practice  of  that 
age,  show  a  superior  intellect.  Few  men  are  far  in  ad- 
vance of  their  contemporaries ;  and  this  is  a  wise  arrange- 
ment of  Providence,  for  such  men  are  not  so  immediately 
useful,  as  many  others  of  inferior  powers.  They  are  not 
understood — they  offend  the  prejudices,  and  wound  the 
self-love  of  men.  Their  influence  is  of  the  nature  of  pro- 
phecy. They  plant  principles,  which  are  of  slow  growth, 
but  which  will  eventually  produce  rich  fruit.  Such  indi- 
viduals must  be  content  to  live  for  posterity.  They  must 
be  steadfast  in  upholding  the  truth,  though  amid  ingrati- 
tude and  opposition,  cheered  by  the  bright  prospect  of 
future  triumph. 

Mr,  Williams  was  of  this  class  of  men,  and  his  station 
in  that  class  is  a  proof  of  the  elevation  and  vigor  of  his 
mind. 

It  is  an  evidence,  also,  of  superior  moral  qualities.  It 
requires  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  a  pure  love  of  truth,  a 
benevolent  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  mankind,  an  elevation 
above  selfish  ends.  All  these  traits  of  character  Mr.  W^il- 
liams  possessed.  He  was  sincerely  pious.  Love  to  God 
dwelt  habitually  in  his  soul,  and  controlled  his  feelings  and 


388  MEMOIR     OF 

his  actions.  In  his  books  and  letters,  every  topic  takes  a 
hue  from  his  piety.  His  magnanimous  forgiveness  of  inju- 
ries, his  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  all  who  sought  his  aid,  his 
untiring  benevolence  towards  the  hapless  savages,  his  pat- 
riotic and  self-denying  toils  for  the  prosperity  of  his  colony, 
all  show  the  efficacy  and  fervor  of  those  religious  princi- 
ples which  governed  him.  Mr.  Callender  said  of  him, 
"  Mr.  Williams  appears,  by  the  whole  course  and  tenor  of 
his  life  and  conduct  here,  to  have  been  one  of  the  most 
disinterested  men  that  ever  lived,  a  most  pious  and  heavenly 
minded  soul."  *  Dr.  Bentley  says :'  "  In  Salem,  every 
person  loved  Mr.  Williams.  He  had  no  personal  enemies, 
under  any  pretence.  All  valued  his  friendship.  Kind 
treatment  could  win  him,  but  opposition  could  not  conquer 
him.  He  was  not  afraid  to  stand  alone  for  truth  against 
the  world,  and  he  had  address  enough  with  his  firmness, 
never  to  be  forsaken  by  the  friends  hre  had  ever  gained. 
He  had  always  a  tenderness  of  conscience,  and  feared 
every  offence  against  moral  truth.  He  breathed  the  purest 
devotion.  He  was  a  friend  of  human  nature,  forgiving, 
upright  and  pious.  He  understood  the  Indians  better  than 
any  man  of  his  age.  He  made  not  so  many  converts,  but 
he  made  more  sincere  friends."  t 

His  religious  principles  were  those  of  Calvin.  His  views 
of  the  ordinances  of  the  Gospel  were,  undoubtedly,  after 
his  baptism,  those  now  held  by  the  Baptists.  But  he  did 
not  acknowledge  himself  as  belonging  to  any  denomina- 
tion ;  because  he  believed,  that  there  are  now  neither  true 
churches,  nor  persons  authorized  to  administer  the  ordi- 
nances. 

His  political  principles  were  decidedly  in  favor  of  the 
rights  of  the  people.  He  not  only  displayed  them,  in  the 
civil  constitution  of  his  colony,  but  he  repeatedly  stated 
them  in  his  books.  Such  passages  as  the  following  contain 
his  political  creed  : 

"  Kings  and  magistrates  must  be  considered  invested 
with  no  more  power  than  the  people  betrust  them  with." 
"  The  sovereign  power  of  all  civil  authority  is  founded  in 
the  consent  of  the  people."  t 

*  Century  Discourse,  p.  17.  t  1  His.  Col.  vi.  p.  249. 

t  Bloody  Tenet,  pp.  il6,  243. 


ROGER      WILLIAMS.  389 

The  faults  of  Mr.  Williams  sprung,  in  part,  from  the  im- 
perfection of  human  nature,  and  in  part  from  his  tempera- 
ment and  the  constitution  of  his  mind.  He  was  ardent, 
and  his  imagination  was  the  most  active  of  his  intellectual 
faculties.  He  sometimes  adopted  opinions,  rather  by  a 
sudden  bound  of  the  imagination,  than  by  a  regular  pro- 
cess of  reasoning.  His  ardor,  and  his  conscientious  and 
fearless  love  of  truth,  impelled  him  to  act  on  his  opinions, 
with  a  degree  of  energy  and  firmness  which  exposed  him 
to  the  charge  of  obstinacy.  Such  a  man  will  occasionally 
fall  into  error,  and  into  rapid  transitions,  which  will  give 
to  his  conduct  the  appearance  of  inconsistency.  This  was 
the  case  with  Mr.  Williams,  in  some  of  his  actions,  but  the 
inconsistency  never  affected  his  great  principles.  These 
he  never  abandoned  for  a  moment.  His  course  was  steadily 
onward,  like  that  of  a  planet,  though  disturbing  causes  oc- 
casionally produced  slight  eccentricities. 

In  his  domestic  relations,  he  seems  to  have  been  amiable 
and  happy.  His  expressions  of  attachment  to  his  family 
prove  the  strength  of  his  conjugal  and  parental  affection. 
His  children  grew  up  to  maturity.  A  numerous  posterity 
have  arisen  to  bless  his  memory,  and  to  feel  pleasure  in 
the  contemplation  of  his  character  and  the  diffusion  of  his 
fame. 

He  is  dead,  but  his  principles  survive,  and  are  destined 
to  spread  over  the  earth.  The  State  which  he  founded  is 
his  monument.*  Her  sons,  when  asked  for  a  record  of 
Roger  Williams,  may  point  to  her  history,  unstained  by  a 
single  act  of  persecution  ;  to  her  prosperity,  her  perfect 
freedom,  her  tranquil  happiness,  and  may  reply,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  epitaph  on  the  tomb  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren, 
in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  'Hook  around!'^ 

"  Si  monumentum  quasris,  circumspice." 
*See  Appendix  I. 


APPENDIX. 


Note  A.  p.  23. 

On  the  subject  of  the  relationship  between  Cromwell  and  Roger 
Williams,  an  obliging  antiquarian  friend  says  : 

"  As  to  the  relationship  between  Mr.  Williams  and  Oliver  Crom- 
well, I  can  only  say,  that  it  was  quite  remote,  if  it  existed  at  all. 
In  the  London  Review,  for  March,  1772,  is  a  genealogy  of  the 
Cromwell  family.  As  you  may  not  have  seen  this  account,  and  as 
it  may  interest  you,  I  will  give  you  an  abridgment  of  it,  that  you 
may  see  how  near  related  he  was  to  the  Protector. 

'•  The  genealogy  was  extracted  from  Welch  chronicles,  about  the 
year  1602,  to  show  the  descent  of  Sir  Henry  Cromwell,  who  was 
then  living.  It  commences  in  the  person  of  Glothyan,  fifth  Lord 
of  Powes,  who  married  Morpeth,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Edwin  ap 
Tydwall,  Lord  of  Cardigan,  who  was  lineally  descended  from  Cave- 
dig,  of  whom  the  county  of  Cardigan  took  the  name  of  Cavedigion. 
His  son,  Gwaith  Voyd,  was  Lord  of  Cardigan,  Powes,  Gwayte  and 
Gwaynesaye.     He  died  about  1066. 

"  From  Gwynstan  ap  Gwaith,  second  son  of  the  above  Gwaith 
Voyd,  was  lineally  descended,  through  about  thirteen  generations, 
■or  in  about  four  hundred  and  forty  years,  Morgan  Williams,  who,  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  married  the  sister  of  Thomas  Cromwell. 
This  Morgan  Williams  had  a  son  Richard,  who  Avas  knighted  by 
Henry  VIII.,  not  by  the  name  of  Williams,  but  by  the  name  of 
Cromwell,  after  his  uncle,  whose  heir  he  became.  This  Sir  Pi-ichard 
had  a  son  Henry,  who  was  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1563, 
and  married  Joan,  daughter  of  Sir  Ralph  Warren,  and  had  six  sons 
and  four  daughters.  The  sons  were  Oliver,  Robert,  Henry,  Richard, 
Philip  and  Ralph.  Oliver,  the  Protector,  was  the  only  son  of  Rob- 
ert, and  born  in  the  parish  of  St.  John,  in  Huntingdon.  April  25, 
1599. 

''  The  above  will  satisfy  us,  that  the  tradition  in  the  family  of  their 
being  a  connection  by  blood  with  the  Protector,  may  be  true.  You 
will  see,  however,  that  the  connection  was  quite  remote." 

Concerning  the  parents  of  Mr.  Williams,  I  have  discovered  noth- 
ing.    The  name  '•' Pv,oger  Williams  "  occurs  in  Welsh  genealogies, 


392  APPENDIX. 

but  without  any  clue  to  guide  us.  I  have  written  to  Wales  for  in- 
formation, but  have  received  no  reply.  A  brother  of  Mr.  Williams, 
named  Robert,  was  one  of  the  early  inhabitants  of  Providence,  and 
was  afterwards  a  schoolmaster  in  Newport.  He  mentions,  in  one  of 
his  books,  another  brother,  "  a  Turkey  merchant."  Richard  Wil- 
liams, who  settled  in  Taunton,  has  been  supposed  to  have  been  a 
brother  of  Rosrer. 


Note  B.  p.  54. 

Our  note  respecting  the  Anabaptists  must  be  brief.  An  Anabap- 
tist is  one  who  baptizes  again  a  person  previously  baptized.  The 
Cathari,  of  the  third  century,  were  accustomed  to  baptize  again 
those  who  joined  them  from  other  sects. — Murdock's  Mosheim,  vol. 
i.  p.  247.  The  name  was  early  applied  to  those  who  opposed  infant 
baptism,  and  who  baptized  those  who  joined  them,  though  they  had 
been  baptized  in  infancy.  The  name,  of  course,  expressed  the 
views  of  their  opponents,  and  not  their  own,  because  they  did  not 
consider  such  persons  as  having  been  baptized. 

Of  the  history  of  the  Anabaptists,  (retaining  this  name  for  the 
sake  of  convenience,)  we  cannot  now  speak.  Tlie  odium  and  alarm 
which  are  alluded  to  in  the  text,  arose  from  the  disturbances  that 
occurred  in  Germany,  about  the  year  1535.  It  would  be  tedious  to 
narrate  these  events  ;  but  it  ma}'^  be  stated,  briefly,  that  the  peasants, 
oppressed  by  their  feudal  lords,  made  a  desperate  effort  to  obtain 
their  freedom.  Among  them  were  some  Anabaptists,  mingled  with 
Lutherans,  Catholics  and  others.  They  obtained  possession  of  the 
city  of  Munster,  in  Westphalia,  and  held  it  about  three  years;  but 
they  were  finally  overpowered,  and  the  war  terminated,  after  im- 
mense slaughter.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  just  revolt,  and  a  strug- 
gle for  liberty ;  but  it  failed,  and  the  leaders  have  been  stigmatized 
as  fanatics,  and  as  guilty  of  every  species  of  crime.  The  story  has 
been  told  by  their  oppressors  and  enemies,  and  it  is  entitled  to  very 
little  credit.  Mosheim  seems  to  have  been  unable  to  find  words  to 
express  his  abhorrence  of  the  Anabaptists,  to  whom  he  imputes  most 
of  the  disorders  of  the  Rustic  War.  Other  writers  are  more  candid. 
Benedict  (vol.  i.  pp.  246,  265)  has  vindicated  the  Baptists  from  the 
charges  which  have  been  alleged  against  them  in  connection  with 
that  war.  Admitting  that  very  dangerous  doctrines  were  then 
avowed,  and  wrong  actions  committed,  it  is  unjust  to  make  the 
Baptists  of  England  and  America  responsible  for  them.  It  would 
be  as  fair,  to  impute  to  Pedobaptists  all  the  atrocities  of  the  Papal 
church.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose,  to  prove,  that  the 
English  and  American  Baptists  have  never  held  the  principles 
which  have  been  ascribed  to  the  Anabaptists  of  Germany.  The  re- 
jection of  magistracy  has  been  the  most  prominent  charge.  A  com- 
pany of  persons,  called  Anabaptists,  in  London,  published  a  Con- 
fession of  Faith,  about  the  year  1611,  in  which  they  say:  ''The 
office  of  the  magistrate  is  a  permissive  ordinance  of  God."  And  in 
the  following  article,  they  anticipated  the  doctrines  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams :  ''  The  magistrate  is  not  to  meddle  with  religion,  or  matters 
of  conscience,  nor  to  compel  men  to  this  or  that  form  of  religion; 


APPENDIX. 


393 


because  Christ  is  the  King  or  Lawgiver  of  the  church  and  con- 
science."— Crosby,  vol.  i.  p.  71,  appendix.  In  a  '-  Confession  of 
Faith  of  seven  congregations,  or  churches  of  Christ,  in  London, 
which  are  commonly,  but  unjustly,  called  Anabaptists,"  published 
in  1646,  they  say  :  "  A  civil  magistracy  is  an  ordinance  of  God,  set 
up  by  him  for  the  punishment  of  evil  doers,  and  for  the  praise  of 
them  that  do  well ;  and  that  in  all  lawful  things,  commanded  by 
them,  subjection  ought  to  be  given  by  us  in  the  Lord,  not  only  for 
wrath,  but  for  conscience  sake  ;  and  that  we  are  to  make  supplica- 
tions and  prayers  for  kings,  and  for  all  that  are  in  authority,  that 
under  them  we  may  live  a  quiet  and  peaceable  life,  in  all  godliness 
and  honesty." — Crosby,  vol.  i.  appendix,  p.  23.  These  extracts  ex- 
press the  doctrines  of  the  English  Baptist  churches  on  the  point  in 
question.  The  principles  of  Roger  Williams,  respecting  religious  and 
civil  duties,  are  sufficiently  exhibited  in  the  Memoir.  They  are  the 
principles  of  the  American  Baptist  churches,  and  have  been  so  from 
the  beginning.  In  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  First  Baptist 
Church  in  Boston,  founded  in  1665,  and  the  oldest  church  in  what 
was  then  the  colony  of  Massachusetts,  the  church  say  :  "  We  ac- 
knowledge magistracy  to  be  an  ordinance  of  God,  and  to  submit 
ourselves  to  them  in  the  Lord,  not  because  of  wrath  only,  but  for 
conscience  sake." — Winchell's  Historical  Discourses,  p.  10. 


Note  C.  p.  74. 

The  following  very  interesting  letter  was  first  published  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections  : 

'^  Providence,  June  22,  1670,  {ut  vulgo.) 
'•  Major  Mason,* 
"  My  honored,   dear  and  ancient  friend,  my  due  respects  and 
earnest  desires  to  God,  for  your  eternal  peace,  &c. 

"  I  crave  your  leave  and  patience  to  present  you  with  some  few 
considerations,  occasioned  by  the  late  transactions  between  your 

*  "  Major  Mason — famous  for  his  services,  while  captain,  in  the  Pequod  war.  He  was 
a  soldier  in  the  Low  Countries,  under  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax,  one  of  the  first  settlers  of 
Dorchester,  Mass.  in  1630.  He  afterwards  removed  to  Windsor,  Conn.  He  put  an  end 
to  the  Peq^uod  war,  in  1638-,  was  appointed,  soon  after,  Major  General  of  the  Connecti- 
cut forces,  and  in  May,  1660,  was  elected  Deputy  Governor  of  that  colony.  He  died  at 
Norwich,  in  the  seventy-third  year  of  his  age,  in  1672  or  1673.  An  account  of  the  Pe- 
quod war  was  published  by  him,  republishecl  in  Hubbard's  Narrative,  and  by  Rev.  T. 
Prince.  In  the  fourth  volume  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  a  cuiious 
poem  is  published,  of  Governor  Wolcoll's,  giving  an  account  of  his  predecessoi  Win- 
throp's  embassy  to  the  Court  of  Charles  II.,  fo  obtain  a  charter,  in  which  Mason  is  men- 
tioned with  the  highest  eulogies.  Winthrop  is  made  to  give  the  King  a  relation,  among 
other  things,  of  the  Pequod  war,  and  says  : 

'The  army  now  drawn  up:  to  be  their  head 
Our  valiant  Mason  was  consmissioned  ; 
(Whose  name  is  never  mentioned  by  me, 
Without  a  special  note  of  dignity.') 

"  In  granting  the  charter,  Charles  speaks  thus : 

'Chief  in  the  patent,  Winthrop,  thou  shalt  stand, 

And  valiant  Mason  place  at  thy  next  hand.'"  G. 

34 


394  APPENDIX. 

colony  and  ours.  The  last  year  you  were  pleased,  in  one  of  your 
lines  to  me,  to  tell  me  that  you  longed  to  see  my  face  once  more 
before  you  died.  I  embraced  your  love,  though  I  feared  my  old 
lame  bones,  and  yours,  had  arrested  travelling  in  this  world,  and 
therefore  I  was  and  am  ready  to  lay  hold  on  all  occasions  of  writing, 
as  I  do  at  present. 

''  The  occasion,  I  confess,  is  sorrowful,  because  I  see  y-ourselves, 
with  others,  embarked  in  a  resolution  to  invade  and  despoil  your 
poor  countrymen,  in  a  wilderness,  and  your  ancient  friends,  of  our 
temporal  and  soul  liberties. 

'•  It  is  sorrowful,  also,  because  mine  eye  beholds  a  black  and 
doleful  train  of  grievous,  and,  I  fear,  bloody  consequences,  at  the 
heel  of  this  business,  both  to  you  and  us.  The  Lord  is  righteous  in 
all  our  afflictions,  that  is  a  maxim  ;  the  Lord  is  gracious  to  all  op- 
pressed, that  is  another  ;  he  is  most  gracious  to  the  soul  that  cries 
and  waits  on  him :  that  is  silver,  tried  in  the  fire  seven  times. 

''  Sir,  I  am  not  out  of  hopes,  but  thit  while  your  aged  eyes  and 
mine  are  yet  in  their  orbs,  and  not  yet  sunk  down  into  their  holes 
of  rottenness,  we  shall  leave  our  friends  and  countrymen,  our  chil- 
dren and  relations,  and  this  land,  in  peace,  behind  us.  To  this  end, 
Sir,  please  you  with  a  calm  and  steady  and  a  Christian  hand,  to 
hold  the  balance  and  to  weigh  these  few  considerations,  in  much 
love  and  due  respect  presented  : 

"  First.  When  I  was  unkindly  and  unchristianly,  as  I  believe, 
driven  from  my  house  and  land  and  wife  and  children,  (in  the 
midst  of  a  New-England  winter,  now  about  thirty-five  years  past.) 
at  Salem,  that  ever-honored  Governor,  Mr.  Winthrop,  privately 
wrote  to  me  to  steer  my  course  to  the  Narraganset  Bay  and  Indians, 
for  many  high  and  heavenly  and  public  ends,  encouraging  me,  from 
the  freeness  of  the  place  from  any  English  claims  or  patents.  I 
took  his  prudent  motion  as  a  hint  and  voice  from  God,  and  waving 
all  other  thoughts  and  motions,  I  steered  my  course  from  Salem 
(though  in  winter  snow,  which  I  feel  yet)  unto  these  parts,  wherein 
I  may  say  Peniel,  that  is,  I  have  seen  the  face  of  God. 

"  Second.  I  first  pitched,  and  begun  to  build  and  plant  at  Seekonk, 
now  Rehoboth,  but  I  received  a  letter  from  my  ancient  friend,  Mr. 
Winslow,  then  Governor  of  Plymouth,  professing  his  own  and  others' 
love  and  respect  to  me,  yet  lovingly  advising  me,  since  I  was  fallen 
into  the  edge  of  their  bounds,  and  they  were  loth  to  displease  the 
Bay,  to  remove  but  to  the  other  side  of  the  water,  and  then,  he  said, 
I  had  the  country  free  beford"  me,  and  might  be  as  free  as  them- 
selves, and  we  should  be  loving  neighbors  together.  These  were 
the  joint  understandings  of  these  two  eminently  wise  and  Christian 
Governors  and  others,  in  their  day,  together  with  their  counsel  and 
advice  as  to  the  freedom  and  vacancy  of  this  place,  which  in  tliis 
respect,  and  many  other  Providences  of  the  Most  Holy  and  Only 
Wise,  I  called  Providence. 

"  Third.  Sometime  after,  the  Plymouth  great  sachem,  (Ousama- 
quin*)  upon  occasion,  affirming  that  Providence  was  his  land,  and 
therefore  Plymouth's  land,  and  some  resenting  it,  the  then  prudent 
and  godly  Governor,  Mr.  Bradford,  and  others  of  his  godly  council, 

*  Goinaionly  called  Wassassoit. 


APPENDIX.  395 

answered,  that  if,  after  due  examination,  it  should  be  found  true 
what  the  barbarian  said,  yet  having,  to  my  loss  of  a  harvest  that 
year,  been  now  (though  by  their  gentle  advice)  as  good  as  banished 
from  Plymouth  as  from  the  Massachusetts,  and  1  had  quietly  and 
patiently  departed  from  them,  at  their  motion,  to  the  place  where 
now  I  was,  I  should  not  be  molested  and  tossed  up  and  down  again, 
while  they  had  breath  in  their  bodies ;  and  surely,  between  those, 
my  friends  of  the  Bay  and  Plymouth,  I  w^as  sorely  tossed,  for  one 
fourteen  weeks,  in  a  bitter  winter  season,  not  knowing  what  bread 
or  bed  did  mean,  beside  the  yearly  loss  of  no  small  matter  in  my 
trading  with  English  and  natives,  being  debarred  from  Boston,  the 
cliief  mart  and  port  of  New-England.  God  knows  that  many 
thousand  pounds  cannot  repay  the  very  temporary  losses  I  have 
sustained.  It  lies  upon  the  Massachusetts  and  me,  yea,  and  other 
colonies  joining  with  them,  to  examine,  with  fear  and  trembling, 
before  the  eyes  of  flaming  fire,  the  true  cause  of  all  my  sorrows  and 
sufferings.  It  pleased  the  Father  of  spirits  to  touch  many  hearts, 
dear  to  him,  with  some  relentings  ;  amongst  which,  that  great  and 
pious  soul,  Mr.  Winslow,  melted,  and  kindly  visited  me,  at  Provi- 
dence, and  put  a  piece  of  gold  into  the  hands  of  my  wife,  for  our 
supply. 

''  Fourth.  When,  the  next  year  after  my  banishment,  the  Lord 
drew  the  bow  of  the  Pequod  war  against  the  country,  in  which,  Sir, 
the  Lord  made  yourself,  with  others,  a  blessed  instrument  of  peace 
to  all  New-England,  I  had  my  share  of  service  to  the  whole  land  in 
that  Pequod  business,  inferior  to  very  few  that  acted,  for, 

''1.  Upon  letters  received  from  the  Governor  and  Council  at 
Boston,  requesting  me  to  use  my  utmost  and  speediest  endeavors  to 
break  and  hinder  the  league  labored  for  by  the  Pequods  against  the 
Mohegans,  and  Pequods  against  the  English,  (excusing  the  not 
sending  of  company  and  supplies,  by  the  haste  of  the  business,)  the 
Lord  helped  me  immediately  to  put  my  life  into  my  hand,  and, 
scarce  acquainting  my  wife,  to  ship  myself,  all  alone,  in  a  poor 
canoe,  and  to  cut  through  a  stormy  wind,  with  great  seas,  every 
minute  in  hazard  of  life,  to  the  sachem's  house. 

'•  2.  Three  days  and  nights  my  business  forced  me  to  lodge  and 
mix  with  the  bloody  Pequod  ambassadors,  whose  hands  and  arms,  me- 
thought,  wreaked  with  the  blood  of  my  countrymen,  murdered  and 
massacred  by  them  on  Connecticut  river,  and  from  whom  I  could 
not  but  nightly  look  for  their  bloody  knives  at  my  own  throat  also. 

''  3.  When  God  wondrously  preserved  me,  and  helped  me  to 
break  to  pieces  the  Pequods'  negotiation  and  design,  and  to  make, 
and  promote  and  finish,  by  many  travels  and  charges,  the  English 
league  with  the  Narragansets  and  Mohegans  against  the  Pequods, 
and  that  the  English  forces  marched  up  to  the  Narraganset  country 
against  the  Pequods,  I  gladly  entertained,  at  my  house  in  Provi- 
dence, the  General  Stoughton  and  his  officers,  and  used  my  utmost 
care  that  all  his  officers  and  soldiers  should  be  well  accommodated 
with  us. 

'■  4.  I  marched  up  with  them  to  the  Narraganset  sachems,  and 
brought  my  countrymen  and  the  barbarians,  sachems  and  captains, 
to  a  m.utual  confidence  and  complacence,  each  in  other. 

•'  5.    Though  I  was  ready  to  have  marched  further,  yet,  upon 


396  APPENDIX. 

agreement  that  I  should  keep  at  Providence,  as  an  agent  between 
the  Bay  and  the  army,  I  returned,  and  was  interpreter  and  intelli- 
gencer, constantly  receiving  and  sending  letters  to  the  Governor 
and  Council  at  Boston,  &c.,  in  which  work  I  judge  it  no  imperti- 
nent digression  to  recite  (out  of  the  many  scores  of  letters,  at  times, 
from  Mr.  Winthrop.)  this  one  pious  and  heavenly  prophecy,  touch- 
ing all  New-England,  of  that  gallant  man,  viz  :  "  ]f  the  Lord  turn 
away  his  face  from  our  sins,  and  bless  our  endeavors  and  yours,  at 
this  time,  against  our  bloody  enemy,  we  and  our  children  shall  long 
enjoy  peace,  in  this,  our  wilderness  condition."  And  himself  and 
some  other  of  the  Council  motioned,  and  it  was  debated,  whether  or 
no  I  had  not  merited,  not  only  to  be  recalled  from  banishment,  but 
also  to  be  honored  with  some  remark  of  favor.  It  is  known  who 
hindered,  who  never  promoted  the  liberty  of  other  men's  con- 
sciences. These  things,  and  ten  times  more,  I  could  relate,  to  show 
that  I  am  not  a  stranger  to  the  Pequod  wars  and  lands,  and  possibly 
not  far  from  the  merit  of  a  foot  of  land  in  either  country,  which  I 
have  not. 

"  5.  Considering  (upon  frequent  exceptions  against  Providence 
men)  that  we  had  no  authority  for  civil  government,  I  went  pur- 
posely to  England,  and  upon  my  report  and  petition,  the  Parlia- 
ment granted  us  a  charter  of  government  for  these  parts,  so  judged 
vacant  on  all  hands.  And  upon  this,  the  country  about  us  was 
more  friendly,  and  wrote  to  us,  and  treated  us  as  an  authorized 
colony ;  only  the  difference  of  our  consciences  much  obstructed. 
The  bounds  of  this,  our  first  charter,  I  (having  occular  knowledge 
of  persons,  places  and  transactions)  did  honestly  and  conscien- 
tiously, as  in  the  holy  presence  of  God,  draw  up  from  Pawcatuck 
river,  which  I  then  believed,  and  still  do,  is  free  from  all  English 
claims  and  conquests ;  for  although  there  were  some  Pequods  on 
this  side  the  river,  who,  by  reason  of  some  sachems'  marriages  with 
some  on  this  side,  lived  in  a  kind  of  neutrality  with  both  sides,  yet, 
upon  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  they  relinquished  their  land  to 
the  possession  of  their  enemies,  the  Narragansets  and  Nianticks, 
and  their  land  never  came  into  the  condition  of  the  lands  on  the 
other  side,  which  the  English,  by  conquest,  challenged ;  so  that  I 
must  still  affirm,  as  in  God's  holy  presence,  I  tenderly  waved  to 
touch  a  foot  of  land  in  which  I  knew  the  Pequod  v/ars  were  main- 
tained and  v/ere  properly  Pequod,  being  a  gallant  country  ;  and 
from  Pawcatuck  river  hitherward,  being  but  a  patch  of  ground,  full 
of  troublesome  inhabitants,  I  did,  as  I  judged,  inoffensively,  draw 
our  poor  and  inconsiderable  line. 

"  It  is  true,  when  at  Portsmouth,  on  Pv,hode-Island,  some  of  ours, 
in  a  General  Assembly,  motioned  their  planting  on  this  side  Pawca- 
tuck. I,  hearing  that  some  of  the  Massachusetts  reckoned  this  land 
theirs,  by  conquest,  dissuaded  from  the  motion,  until  the  matter 
should  be  amicably  debated  and  composed ;  for  though  I  questioned 
not  our  right,  &c.,  yet  I  feared  it  would  be  inexpedient  and  offen- 
sive, and  procreative  of  these  heats  and  fires,  to  the  dishonoring 
of  the  King's  Majesty,  and  the  dishonoring  and  blaspheming  of 
God  and  of  religion  in  the  eyes  of  the  English  and  barbarians 
about  us. 

''  6.    Some  time  afler  the  Pequod  war  and  our  charter  from  tlie 


APPENDIX.  397 

Parliament,  the  government  of  Massachusetts  wrote  to  myself  (then 
chief  otllcer  in  this  colony)  of  their  receiving  of  a  patent  from  the 
Parliament  for  these  vacant  lands,  as  an  addition  to  the  Massachu- 
setts, &c.,  and  thereupon  requesting  me  to  exercise  no  more  au- 
thority, &c.,  for,  they  wrote,  their  charter  was  granted  some  few 
weeks  before  ours.  I  returned,  what  I  believed  righteous  and 
weighty,  to  the  hands  of  my  true  friend,  Mr.  Winthrop,  the  first 
mover  of  my  coming  into  these  parts,  and  to  that  answer  of  mine  I 
never  received  the  least  reply ;  only  it  is  certain,  that,  at  Mr.  Gor- 
ton's complaint  against  the  Massachusetts,  the  Lord  High  Admiral, 
President,  said,  openly,  in  a  full  meeting  of  the  commissioners,  that 
he  knew  no  other  charter  for  these  parts  than  what  Mr.  Williams 
had  obtained,  and  he  was  sure  that  charter,  which  the  Massachu- 
setts Englishmen  pretended,  had  never  passed  the  table. 

'•  7.  Upon  our  humble  address,  by  our  agent,  Mr.  Clarke,  to  his 
Majesty,  and  his  gracious  promise  of  renewing  our  former  charter, 
Mr.  Winthrop,  upon  some  mistake,  had  entrenched  upon  our  line, 
and  not  only  so,  but,  as  it  is  said,  upon  the  lines  of  other  charters 
also.  Upon  Mr.  Clarke's  complaint,  your  grant  was  called  in  again, 
and  it  had  never  been  returned,  but  upon  a  report  that  the  agents, 
Mr.  Winthrop  and  Mr.  Clarke,  were  agreed,  by  mediation  of  friends, 
(and  it  is  true,  they  came  to  a  solemn  agreement,  under  hands  and 
seals.)  which  agreement  was  never  violated  on  our  part. 

''  8.  But  the  King's  Majesty  sending  his  commissioners  (among 
other  of  his  royal  purposes)  to  reconcile  the  differences  of,  and  to 
settle  the  bounds  between  the  colonies,  yourselves  knov/  how  the 
King  himself  therefore  hath  given  a  decision  to  this  controversy. 
Accordingly,  the  King's  Majesty's  aforesaid  commissioners  at  Rhode 
Island,  (where,  as  a  commissioner  for  this  colony,  I  transacted  with 
them,  as  did  also  commissioners  from  Plymouth.)  they  composed  a 
controversy  betVv^een  Plymouth  and  us,  and  settled  the  bounds  be- 
tween us,  in  which  we  rest. 

''  9.  However  you  satisfy  yourselves  with  the  Pequod  conquest ; 
with  the  sealing  of  your  charter  some  few  weeks  before  ours ;  with 
the  complaints  of  particular  men  to  your  colony  ;  yet,  upon  a  due 
and  serious  examination  of  the  matter,  in  the  sight  of  God,  you  will 
find  the  business  at  bottom  to  be, 

"  First,  a  depraved  appetite  after  the  great  vanities,  dreams  and 
shadows  of  this  vanishing  life,  great  portions  of  land,  land  in  this 
wilderness,  as  if  men  were  in  as  great  necessity  and  danger  for  want 
of  great  portions  of  land,  as  poor,  hungry,  thirsty  seamen  have,  after 
a  sick  and  stormy,  a  long  and  starving  passage.  This  is  one  of  the 
gods  of  New-England,  which  the  living  and  most  high  Eternal  will 
destroy  and  famish. 

''  2.  An  unneighborly  and  unchristian  intrusion  upon  us,  as  being 
the  v\^eaker,  contrary  to  your  laws,  as  well  as  ours,  concerning  pur- 
chasing of  lands  without  the  consent  of  the  General  Court.  This  I 
told  Major  Atherton,  at  his  first  going  up  to  the  Narraganset  about 
this  business.  I  refused  all  their  proffers  of  land,  and  refused  to  in- 
terpret for  them  to  the  sachems. 

'•  3.  From  these  violations  and  intrusions  arise  the  complaint  of 
many  privateers,  not  dealing  as  they  would  be  dealt  with,  according 

34* 


398  APPENDIX. 

to  law  of  nature,  the  law  of  the  prophets  and  Christ  Jesus,  complain- 
ing against  others,  in  a  design,  when  they  themselves  are  delinquents 
and  wrong  doers.  I  could  aggravate  this  many  waj's  with  Scripture 
rhetoric  and  similitudes,  but  1  see  need  of  anodynes,  (as  physicians 
speak.)  and  not  of  irritations.  Only  this  I  must  crave  leave  to  say, 
that  it  looks  like  a  prodigy  or  monster,  that  countrymen  among  sav- 
ages in  a  wilderness  ;  that  professors  of  God  and  one  Mediator,  of  an 
eternal  life,  and  that  this  is  like  a  dream,  should  not  be  content  with 
those  vast  and  large  tracts  which  all  the  other  colonies  have,  (like 
platters  and  tables  full  of  dainties,)  but  pull  and  snatch  away  their 
poor  neighbors'  bit  or  crust ;  and  a  crust  it  is,  and  a  dry,  hard  one, 
too,  because  of  the  natives'  continual  troubles,  trials  and  vexations. 

'■  10.  Alas  !  Sir.  in  calm  midnight  thoughts,  what  are  these  leaves 
and  flowers,  and  smoke  and  shadows,  and  dreams  of  earthly  nothings, 
about  which  we  poor  fools  and  children,  as  David  saith,  disquiet  our- 
selves in  vain  .''  Alas  !  what  is  all  the  scuffling  of  this  world  for, 
but,  come,  icUl  you  smoke  it  ?  What  are  all  the  contentions  and  wars 
of  this  world  about,  generally,  but  for  greater  dishes  and  bowls  of 
porridge,  of  which,  if  we  believe  God's  Spirit  in  Scripture.  Esau  and 
Jacob  were  types  ?  Esau  will  part  with  the  heavenly  birthright  for 
his  supping,  after  his  hunting,  for  god  belly  ;  and  Jacob  will  part 
with  his  porridge  for  an  eternal  inheritance.  O  Lord,  give  me  to 
make  Jacob's  and  Mary's  choice,  which  shall  never  be  taken  from 
me. 

•'  11.  How  much  sv.'eeter  is  the  counsel  of  the  Son  of  God,  to  mind 
first  the  matters  of  his  kingdom  ;  to  take  no  care  for  to-morrow;  to 
pluck  out,  cut  off  and  jfiing  away  right  eyes,  hands  and  feet,  rather 
than  to  be  cast  whole  into  hell-lire  ;  to  consider  the  ravens  and  the 
lilies  whona  a  heavenly  Father  so  clothes  and  feeds;  and  the  coun- 
sel of  his  servant  Paul,  to  roll  our  cares,  for  this  life  also,  upon  the 
most  high  Lord,  steward  of  his  people,  the  eternal  God  ;  to  be  con- 
tent with  food  and  raiment;  to  mind  not  our  own,  but  every  man  the 
things  of  another  ;  yea,  and  to  suffer  wrong,  and  part  with  what  v/e 
judge  is  right,  j^ca,  our  lives  and  (as  poor  women  martyrs  have  said) 
as  many  as  there  be  hairs  upon  our  heads,  for  the  name  of  God  and 
the  son  of  God  his  sake.  This  is  humanity,  yea  this  is  Christianit}^. 
The  rest  is  but  formality  and  picture,  courteous  idolatry  and  Jewish 
and  Popish  blasphemy  against  the  Christian  religion,  the  Father  of 
spirits  and  his  Son,  the  Lord  Jesus.  Besides,  Sir,  the  matter  with  us 
is  not  about  these  children's  toj's  of  land,  meadows,  cattle,  govern- 
ment. &c.  But  here,  all  over  this  colony,  a  great  number  of  weak 
and  distressed  souls,  scattered,  are  flying  hither  from  Old  and  New- 
England,  the  Most  liigh  and  Only  Wise  hath,  in  his  infinite  wisdom, 
prgvided  this  country  and  this  corner  as  a  shelter  for  the  poor  and 
persecuted,  according  to  their  several  persuasions.  And  thus  that 
heavenly  man,  Mr.  Haynes,  Goveriior  of  Connecticut,  though  he 
pronounced  the  sentence  of  my  long  banishment  against  me,  at 
Cambridge,  then  Newtovv'n,  yet  said  unto  mo,  in  his  own  house  at 
Hartford,  being  then  in  some  difference  with  the  Bay  :  ••  I  think, 
Mr.  Williams,  I  must  now  confess  to  you,  that  the  most  wise  God 
hath  provided  and  cut  out  this  part  of  his  world  for  a  refuge  and  re- 
ceptacle for  all  sorts  of  consciences.     I  am  now  under  a  cloud,  and 


APPENDIX.  399 

my  brother  Hooker;  with  the  Bay,  as  you  have  been,  we  have  remov- 
ed" from  them  thus  far,  and  yet  they  are  not  satisfied." 

'•  Thus,  Sir,  the  King's  Majesty,  though  his  father's  and  his  own 
conscience  favored  Lord  Bishops,  which  their  father  and  grandfather 
King  James,  whom  I  have  spoke  with,  sore  against  his  will,  also  did, 
yet  all  the  world  may  see,  by  his  Majesty's  declarations  and  engage- 
ments before  his  return,  and  his  declarations  and  Parliament  speeches 
since,  and  many  suitable  actings,  how  the  Father  of  spirits  hath 
mightily  impressed  and  touched  his  royal  spirit,  though  the  Bishops 
much  disturbed  him,  with  deep  inclination  of  favor  and  gentleness 
to  different  consciences  and  apprehensions  as  to  the  invisible  King 
and  way  of  his  worship.  Hence  he  hath  vouchsafed  his  rojal 
promise  under  his  hand  and  broad  seal,  that  no  person  in  this  colony 
shall  be  molested  or  questioned  for  the  matters  of  his  conscience  to 
God,  so  he  be  loyal  and  keep  the  civil  peace.  Sir,  we  must  part 
with  lands  and  lives  before  we  part  with  such  a  jewel.  I  judge  ycu 
may  yield  some  land  and  the  government  of  it  to  us,  and  we,  for 
peace  sake,  the  like  to  you,  as  being  but  subjects  to  one  king,  &c. 
and  1  think  the  King's  Majesty  would  thank  us,  for  many  reasons. 
But  to  part  v/ith  this  jewel,  we  may  as  soon  do  it  as  the  Jews  with 
the  favor  of  Cyrus,  Darius  and  Artaxerxes.  Yourselves  pretend 
liberty  of  conscience,  but  alas  !  it  is  but  self,  the  great  god  self,  only 
to  yourselves.  The  King's  Majesty  winks  at  Barbadoes,  where 
Jews  and  all  sorts  of  Christian  and  Antichristian  persuasions  are 
free,  but  our  grant,  some  few  weeks  after  yours  sealed,  though  grant- 
ed as  soon,  if  not  before  yours,  is  crowned  with  the  King's  extraor- 
dinary favor  to  this  colony,  as  being  a  banished  one,  in  which  his 
IMajesty  declared  himself  that  ho  would  experiment,  whether  civil 
government  could  consist  with  such  liberty  of  conscience.  This 
his  Majesty's  grant  was  startled  at  by  his  Majesty's  high  officers  of 
state,  who  were  to  view  it  in  course  before  the  sealing,  but  fearing 
the  lion's  roaring,  they  couched,  against  their  wills,  in  obedience  to 
his  Majesty's  pleasure. 

'•'  Some  of  yours,  as  I  heard  lately,  told  tales  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  viz.  that  we  aie  a  profane  people,  and  do  not  keep  the 
Sabbath,  but  some  do  plough,  &c.  But,  first,  you  told  him  not  hov/ 
we  suffer  freely  all  other  persuasions,  yea  the  common  prayer, 
which  yourselves  will  not  suffer.  If  you  say  you  v/iU,  you  confess 
you  must  suffer  more,  as  we  do. 

"2.  You  know  this  is  but  a  color  to  your  design,  for,  first,  you 
knov/  that  all  England  itself  (after  the  formality  and  superstition  of 
morning  and  evening  prayer)  play  away  their  Sabbath.  2d.  You 
know  yourselves  do  not  keep  the  Sabbath,  that  is  the  seventh  day, 
«fcc. 

"  3.  You  know  that  famous  Calvin  and  thousands  more  held  it  but 
ceremonial  and  figurative,  from  Colossians2,  &c.  and  vanished  ;  and 
that  the  day  of  worship  was  alterable  at  the  churches'  pleasure. 
Thus  also  all  the  Romanists  confess,  saying,  viz.  that  there  is  no  ex- 
press scripture,  first,  for  infants'  baptisms;  nor,  second,  for  abolish- 
ing the  seventh  day,  and  instituting  of  the  eighth  day  worship,  but 
that  it  is  at  the  churches'  pleasure. 

"  4.  You  know,  that  generally,  all  this  whole  colony  observe  the 


400  APPENDIX. 

first  da\^,  only  here  and  there  one  cut  of  conscience,  another  out  of 
covetousness,  make  no  conscience  of  it. 

"  5.  You  know  the  greatest  part  of  the  world  make  no  conscience 
of  a  seventh  day.  The  next  part  of  the  world,  Turks,  Jews  and 
Christians,  keep  three  different  days,  Friday,  Saturdaj-,  Sunday  for 
their  Sabbath  and  day  of  worship,  and  every  one  maintains  his  own 
by  the  longest  sword. 

'•  6.  I  have  offered,  and  do,  by  these  presents,  to  discuss  by  disputa- 
tion, writing  or  printing,  among  other  points  of  differences,  these 
three  positions ;  first,  that  forced  worship  stinks  in  God's  nostrils. 
2d.  That  it  denies  Christ  Jesus  yet  to  be  come,  and  makes  the 
church  yet  national,  figurative  and  ceremonial.  3d.  That  in  these 
flames  about  religion,  as  his  Majesty,  his  father  and  grandfather  have 
yielded,  there  is  no  other  prudent,  Christian  way  of  preserving 
peace  in  the  world,  but  by  permission  of  differing  consciences.  Ac- 
cordingly, I  do  now  offer  to  dispute  these  points  and  other  points  of 
difference,  if  you  please,  at  Hartford,  Boston  and  Plymouth.  For 
the  manner  of  the  dispute  and  the  discussion,  if  you  think  fit,  one 
whole  day  each  month  in  summer,  at  each  place,  by  course,  I  am 
ready,  if  the  Lord  permit,  and,  as  I  humbly  hope,  assist  me. 

'•  It  is  said,  that  }'0U  intend  not  to  invade  our  spiritual  or  civil  lib- 
erties, but  only  (under  the  advantage  of  first  sealing  your  charter)  to 
right  the  privateers  that  petition  to  you.  It  is  said,  also,  that  if  you 
had  but  Mishquomacuck  and  Narraganset  lands  quietly  yielded,  you 
would  stop  at  Coweset,  &c.  Oh,  Sir,  what  do  these  thoughts 
preach,  but  that  private  cabins  rule  all,  whatever  become  of  the  ship 
of  common  safety  and  religion,  which  is  so  much  pretended  in  INfbvv^- 
England  ?  Sir,  I  have  heard  further,  and  by  some  that  say  they 
know,  that  something  deeper  than  all  which  hath  been  mentioned 
lies  in  the  three  colonies'  breasts  and  consultations.  I  judge  it  not  fit 
to  commit  such  matter  to  the  trust  of  paper,  &c.  but  only  beseech 
the  Father  of  spirits  to  guide  our  poor  bewildered  spirits,  for  his 
name  and  mercy  sake. 

'•  15.  Whereas  our  case  seems  to  be  the  case  of  Paul  appealing  to 
Ccesar  against  the  plots  of  his  religious,  zealous  adversaries,  I  hear 
you  pass  not  of  our  petitions  and  appeals  to  his  Majesty,  for  partly 
you  think  the  King  will  not  ovv'u  a  profane  people  that  do  not  keep 
the  Sabbath  ;  partly  you  think  tiiat  the  King  incompetent  judge, 
but  you  will  force  him  to  lav\^  also,  to  confirm  your  first-born  Esau, 
though  Jacob  had  him  by  the  heels,  and  in  God's  holy  time  must 
carry  the  birthright  and  inheritance.  I  judge  your  surmise  is  a  dan- 
gerous mistake,  lor  patents,  grants  and  charters,  and  such  like  royal 
favors,  are  not  laws  of  England,  and  acts  of  Parliament,  nor  matters 
of  propriety  and  mciim  and  tuum  between  the  King  and  his  subjects, 
which,  as  the  times  have  been,  have  been  sometimes  triable  in  infe- 
rior Courts ;  but  such  kind  of  grants  have  been  like  high  offices  in 
England,  of  high  lienor,  and  ten,  yea  twenty  thousand  pounds  gain 
per  annum,  yet  revocable  or  curtable  upon  pleasure,  according  to  the 
King's  better  information,  or  upon  liis  Majesty's  sight,  or  misbehav- 
ior, ingratefulness,  or  designs  fraudulently  plotted,  private  and  dis- 
tinct from  him. 

''  16.  Sir,  I  lament  that  such  designs  should  be  carried  on  at  such 


APPENDIX.  401 

a  time,,  while  we  are  stript  and  wliipt,  and  are  still  under  (the  whole 
country)  the  dreadful  rods  of  God,  in  our  wheat,  hay,  corn,  cattle, 
shippino;,  trading,  bodies  and  lives;  when,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
water,  all  sorts  of  consciences  (yours  and  ours)  are  frying  in  the 
Bishops"  pan  and  furnace  ;  when  the  French  and  Romish  Jesuits,  the 
firebrands  of  the  world  for  their  god  belly  sake,  are  kindling  at  our 
back,  in  this  country,  especially  with  the  Mohawks  and  Mohegans, 
against  us,  of  which  I  know  and  have  daily  information. 

••'  17.  If  any  please  to  say,  is  there  no  medicine  for  this  malady  ? 
Must  the  nakedness  of  New-England,  like  some  notorious  strumpet, 
be  prostituted  to  the  blaspheming  eyes  of  all  nations  ?  Must  we  be 
put  to  plead  before  his  Majesty,  and  consequently  the  Lord  Bishops, 
our  common  enemies,  &c.  I  answer,  the  Father  of  mercies  and 
God  of  all  consolations  hath  graciously  discovered  to  me,  as  I  be- 
lieve, a  remedy,  which,  if  taken,  will  quiet  all  minds,  yours  and 
ours,  will  keep  yours  and  ours  in  quiet  possession  and  enjoyment  of 
their  lands,  which  you  all  have  so  dearly  bought  and  purchased  in 
this  barbarous  country,  and  so'long  possessed  amongst  these  wild 
savages  ;  will  preserve  you  both  in  the  liberties  and  honors  of  your 
charters  and  governments,  without  the  least  impeachment  of  yield- 
ing one  to  another  ;  with  a  strong  curb  also  to  those  wild  barbarians 
and  all  the  barbarians  of  this  country,  without  troubling  of  compro- 
misers and  arbitrators  between  you  ;  without  any  delay,  or  long 
and  chargeable  and  grievous  address  to  our  King's  Majesty,  whose 
gentle  and  serene  soul  must  needs  be  afflicted  to  be  troubled  again 
with  us.  If  you  please  to  ask  me  what  my  prescription  is,  I  will  not 
put  you  off  to  Christian  moderation  or  Christian  humility,  or  Chris- 
tian prudence,  or  Christian  love,  or  Christian  self-denial,  or  Chris- 
tian contention  or  patience.  Fori  design  a  civil,  a  humane  and  po- 
litical medicine,  which,  if  the  God  of  Heaven  please  to  bless,  you 
will  find  it  effectual  to  all  the  ends  I  have  proposed.  Only  I  must 
crave  your  pardon,  both  parties  of  you,  if  I  judge  it  not  fit  to  discov- 
er it  at  present.  I  know  you  are  both  of  you  hot ;  I  fear  myself, 
also.  If  both  desire,  in  a  loving  and  calm  spirit,  to  enjoy  your 
rights,  I  promise  you,  with  God's  help,  to  help  you  to  them,  in  a  fair 
and  sweet  and  easy  way.  My  receipt  will  not  please  you  all.  If  it 
should  so  please  God  to  frown  upon  us  that  you  should  not  like  it,  I 
can  but  humbly  mourn,  and  say  with  the  prophet,  that  which  must 
perish  must  perish.  And  as  to  myself,  in  endeavoring  after  your 
temporal  and  spiritual  peace,  I  humbly  desire  to  say,  if  I  perish,  I 
perish.  It  is  but  a  shadow  vanished,  a  bubble  broke,  a  dream  fin- 
ished.    Eternity  will  pay  for  all. 

''  Sir,  I  am  your  old  and  true  friend  and  servant, 

^'R.  W. 

"  To  ray  honored  and  ancient  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Prince,  Gover- 
nor of  Plymouth  Colony,  these  present.  And  by  his  honored  hand 
this  copy,  sent  to  Connecticut,  whom  it  most  concerneth,  I  humbly- 
present  to  the  General  Court  of  Plymouth,  when  next  assembled." 


The  following  documents  are  inserted  here,  as  belonging  to  the 
history  of  Roger  Williams,  though  a  suitable  opportunity  did  not 
occur  to  insert  them  in  the  text. 


402  APPENDIX. 

The  subjoined  letter  was  copied  for  Mr.  Backus,  by  the  late  Judge 
Howell,  of  Providence,  and  was  accompanied  by  the  following  note, 
in  his  hand  writing  :  "  This  remonstrance  was  sent  in  to  the  town, 
upon  their  concluding  to  divide  among  themselves  certain  common 
lands,  out  of  which  R.  Williams  wanted  some  to  remain  still  com- 
mon, for  the  town  afterwards  to  give  occasionally  to  such  as  fled  to 
them,  or  were  banished  for  conscience  sake,  as  he  at  first  gave  it  all 
to  them." 

"  Loving  friends  and  neighbors, 

"  I  have  again  considered  on  these  papers,  and  find  many  consider- 
able things  in  both  of  them.  My  desire  is,  that  after  a  friendly  debate 
of  particulars,  every  man  may  sit  down  and  rest  in  quiet  with  the  final 
sentence  and  determination  of  the  town,  for  all  experience  tells  us 
that  public  peace  and  love  is  better  than  abundance  of  corn  and 
cattle,  &c.  I  have  one  only  motion  and  petition,  which  I  earnestly 
pray  the  town  to  lay  to  heart,  as  ever  they  look  for  a  blessing  from 
God  on  the  toAvn,  on  your  families,  your  corn  and  cattle,  and  your 
children  after  you  ;  it  is  this,  that  after  you  have  got  over  the  black 
brook  of  some  soul  bondage  yourselves,  you  tear  not  down  the  bridge 
after  you,  by  leaving  no  small  pittance  for  distressed  souls  that  may 
come  after  you.  What  though  your  division  or  allotment  be  never 
so  small,  yet  ourselves  know  that  some  men's  distresses  are  such, 
that  a  piece  of  a  dry  crust  and  a  dish  of  cold  water,  is  sweet,  which 
if  this  town  will  give  sincerely  unto  God,  (setting  aside  some  little 
portions  for  other  distressed  souls  to  get  bread  on)  you  know  who 
hath  engaged  His  heavenly  word  for  your  reward  and  recompense. 
''  Yours,  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

To  the  town  of  Providence." 


The  following  letter  is  an  honorable  evidence  of  his  benevolent 
spirit : 

''  Kar.  22,  11,  50,  {so  called.) 
"  Well  beloved  friends, 

''  Loving  respects  to  each  of  you  presented,  with  hearty  desires 
of  your  present  and  eternal  peace.  I  am  sorry  that  I  am  occasioned 
to  trouble  you  in  the  midst  of  many  your  other  troubles,  yet  upon 
the  experience  of  your  wonted  loving-kindness  and  gentleness  to- 
ward all  men  and  myself  also,  I  pray  you  hear  me  patiently.  I  had 
proposed  to  have  personally  attended  this  Court,  and  to  have  pre- 
sented, myself,  these  few  requests  following,  but  being  much  lamed 
and  broken  with  such  travels,  I  am  forced  to  present  you  in  writing 
these  five  requests.  The  first  four  concern  others  living  and  dead 
amongst  us ;  the  fifth,  concerns  myself. 

"  First,  then,  I  pray  be  pleased  to  review  the  propositions  between 
us  and  our  dead  friend,  John  Smith ;  and  since  it  hath  pleased  the 
God  of  all  mercies,  to  vouchsafe  this  town  and  others  such  a  mercy, 
by  his  means,  I  beseech  you  study  how  to  put  an  end  to  that  con- 
troversy depending  between  us  and  him,  (as  I  may  so  speak)  and 
his  ;  'tis  true,  you  have  referred  that  business  to  some  of  our  loving 
neighbors  amongst  you ;  but  since  there  are  some  obstructions,  I 
beseech  you  put  forth  your  wisdoms,  who  know  more  ways  to  the 
wood  than  one.  Ease  the  first,  and  appoint  others,  or  some  other 
course,  that  the  dead  clamor  not  from  his  grave  against  us,  but  that 


APPENDIX.  403 

the  country  about  us  may  say,  that  Providence  is  not  only  a  wise, 
but  a  grateful  people  to  the  God  of  mercies,  and  all  his  instruments 
of  mercy  towards  us. 

''  My  second  request  concerns  the  dead  still.  I  understand,  that 
one  of  the  orphans  of  our  dead  friend,  Daniel  Abbott,  is  likely  (as 
she  herself  told  me)  to  be  disposed  of  in  marriage.  'Tis  true  she  is 
now  come  to  some  years,  but  who  knows  not  what  need  the  poor  maid 
hath  of  your  fatherly  care,  counsel  and  direction.  I  would  not  dis- 
parage the  young  man  (for  I  hear  he  hath  been  laborious)  yet  with 
your  leave,  I  might  say,  I  doubt  not  you  v/ill  not  give  your  daugh- 
ters in  marriage  to  such,  whose  lives  have  been  in  such  a  course, 
without  some  good  assurance  and  certificate  of  his  not  being  en- 
gaged to  other  women,  or  otherways  criminous,  as  also  of  his  reso- 
lution to  forsake  his  former  course,  lest  (this  inquiry  being  neglect- 
ed) the  maid  and  ourselves  repent  when  misery  hath  befallen  her, 
and  a  just  reproof  and  charges  befall  ourselves,  of  Avhich  we  have 
no  need. 

'•'  For,  thirdly,  I  crave  your  consideration  of  that  lamentable  object 
(what  shall  I  say,  of  all  our  censure  or  pity,  I  am  sure)  of  all  our 
wonder  and  astonishment,  Mrs.  Weston.  My  experience  of  the 
distempers  of  persons  elsewhere,  makes  me  confident,  that  although 
not  in  all  things,  yet  in  a  great  measure,  she  is  a  distracted  woman. 
My  request  is,  that  you  would  be  pleased  to  take  what  is  left  of 
hers  into  your  own  hands,  and  appoint  some  to  order  it  for  her  sup- 
ply, and  if  it  may  be,  let  some  public  act  of  mercy  to  her  necessities, 
stand  upon  record  amongst  the  merciful  acts  of  a  merciful  town, 
that  hath  received  many  mercies  from  heaven,  and  remember  that 
we  know  not  how  soon  our  wives  may  be  widows,  and  our  children 
orphans,  yea,  and  ourselves  be  deprived  of  all  or  most  of  our  reason, 
before  we  go  from  hence,  except  mercy  from  the  God  of  mercies 
prevent  it. 

"  Fourthly.  Let  me  crave  your  patience,  while  once  more  I  lead 
your  consideration  to  the  grave,  amongst  the  dead,  the  widows  and 
the  fatherless.  From  some  neighbors  and  the  widow  Mann  her- 
self, I  understand,  that  notwithstanding  her  motherly  aflfection, 
which  will  make  all  burthens  lighter  for  her  children's  good,  yet 
she  is  not  without  fears,  that  if  the  town  be  not  favorable  to  her  in 
after  times,  some  hard  measure  and  pressures  may  befall  her.  My 
request  is,  therefore,  that  it  would  please  you  to  appoint  some  of 
j'^ourselves  to  review  the  will,  and  to  consider  whether  the  pains  of 
the  father,  deceased,  or  want  of  time,  hath  not  occasioned  him  to 
leave  some  of  his  purposes  and  desires  imperfect,  as  also  to  propose 
to  the  town  wherein,  according  to  the  rules  of  justice  and  mercy, 
what  the  deceased  intended,  may  be  perfected,  for  the  greater  com- 
fort both  of  his  widow  and  orphans. 

"Fifth.  My  last  request  concerns  myself.  I  cannot  be  so  unthank- 
ful to  you,  and  so  insensible  of  mine  own  and  family's  comfort,  as 
not  to  take  notice  of  your  continued  and  constant  love  and  care  in 
your  many  public  and  solemn  orders  for  the  payment  of  that  money 
due  unto  me  about  the  charter  :  'tis  true  I  have  never  demanded  it ; 
yea,  I  have  been  truly  desirous  that  it  might  have  been  laid  out  for 
some  further  public  benefit  in  each  town,  but  observing  your  loving 
resolution  to  the  contrary,  I  have  at  last  resolved  to  write  unto  you 


404  APPENDIX. 

(as  I  have  also  lately  done  to  Portsmouth  and  Newport)  about  the 
better  ordering  it  to  my  advantage.  I  have  here  (through  God's 
providence)  convenience  of  improving  some  goats;  my  request  is, 
therefore,  that  if  it  may  be  without  much  trouble,  you  would  please 
to  order  the  payment  of  it  in  cattle  of  that  kind.  I  have  been 
solicited  and  have  promised  my  help,  about  iron  works,  when  the 
matter  is  ripe,  earnestly  desirous  every  way  to  further  the  good  of 
the  town  of  Providence,  to  which  I  am  so  much  engaged,  and  to 
yourselves  the  loving  inhabitants  thereof,  to  whom  I  desire  to  be 
"  Your  truly  loving  and  ever  faithful, 

"  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

*•  For  my  well  beloved  and  much  respected,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
town  of  Providence. 

"  To  Mr.  Robert  Williams  and  Mr.  Thomas  Harris,  deputies,  or 
either  of  them." 


[Copied  from  3  His.  Col.  i.  p.  178.] 

'•  CaiDcaicmsqussick,  11,  7,  48,  {so  called.) 
"  Dear  and  worthy  Sir, 

"  Best  salutations  to  you  both  and  loving  sister  premised,  wishing 
you  eternal  peace  in  the  only  Prince  of  it.  I  have  longed  to  hear 
from  you  and  to  send  to  you  since  this  storm  arose.  The  report  was 
(as  most  commonly  all  Indian  reports  are)  absolutely  false,  of  my 
removing  my  goods,  or  the  least  rag.&c.  A  fortnight  since,  I  heard 
of  the  Mohawks  coming  to  Pawcatuck,  their  rendezvous  ;  that  they 
were  provoked  by  Uncas'  wronging  and  robbing  some  Pawcatuck 
Indians  the  last  year,  and  that  he  had  dared  the  Mohawks,  threaten- 
ing, if  they  came,  to  set  his  ground  with  gobbets  of  their  flesh  ;  that 
our  neighbors  had  given  them  play,  (as  they  do  every  year ;)  yet 
withal  I  heard  they  were  divided  ;  some  resolved  to  proceed,  others 
pleaded  their  hunting  season.  We  have  here  one  Waupinhommin, 
a  proud,  desperate  abuser  of  us,  and  a  firebrand  to  stir  up  the  natives 
against  us,  who  makes  it  all  his  trade  to  run  betvy-^een  the  Mohawks 
and  these,  and  (being  a  captain  also  himself)  renders  the  Mohawks 
more  terrible  and  powerful  than  the  English.  Between  him  and 
the  chief  sachems  hath  been  great  consultations,  and  to  my  knowl- 
edge, he  hath  persuaded  them  to  desert  their  country  and  become 
one  rebellious  body  or  rout  with  the  Mohawks,  and  so  to  defy  the 
English,  ♦fcc.  I  have  sent  also  Vv'hat  I  can  inform  to  the  commis- 
sioners. At  present,  (through  mercy)  we  are  in  peace. 
''  Sir,  I  desire  to  be  ever 

"  Yours  in  Christ  Jesus. 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 

"The  letter  I  have  sent  b}'-  "vVarwick,  twenty  miles  nearer  than 
by  Seekonk. 

'•  For  his  much  honored,  kind  friend,  Mr.  John  Winthrop,  at  his 
house,  in  Nanieag,  these." 


''  Loving  friends  and  neighbors, 
''  Divers  of  yourselves  have    so  cried  out,  of  the  contentions  of 
your  late  meetings,   that  (studying   my  quietness)   I  thought  fit  to 
present  you  with  these  few  lines.   Two  words  I  pray  you  to  consider. 


APPENDIX.  405 

First,  as  to  this  plantation  of  Providence  :  then  as  to  some  new- 
plantation,  if  it  shall  please  the  same  God  of  mercies  who  provided 
this,  to  provide  another  in  mercy  for  us.  1.  As  to  this  town,  although 
I  have  been  called  out,  of  late,  to  declare  my  understanding  as  to 
the  bounds  of  Providence  and  Pawtuxet;  and,  although  divers  have 
lands  and  meadows  in  possession  beyond  these  bounds,  yet  I  hope 
that  none  of  you  think  me  so  senseless  as  to  put  on  any  barba- 
rian to  molest  an  Englishman,  or  to  demand  a  farthing  of  any  of 
you. 

*•  2.  If  any  do  (as  formerly  some  have  done,  and  divers  have  given 
gratuities,  as  Mr.  Field,  about  Notaquoncanot  and  others.)  I  prom- 
ise, that  as  I  have  been  assistant  to  satisfy  and  pacify  the  natives 
round  about  us,  so  I  hope  I  shall  still  while  I  live  be  helpful  to  any 
of  you  that  may  have  occasion  to  use  me. 

<•  Now,  as  to  some  new  plantation,  I  desire  to  propose  that  which 
may  quench  contention,  may  accommodate  such  who  want,  and 
may  also  return  monies  unto  such  as  have  of  late  disbursed. 

"  To  this  purpose,  I  desire  that  we  be  patient,  and  torment  not 
ourselves  and  the  natives,  (sachems  and  people,)  putting  them  upon 
mischievous  remedies,  w^ith  the  great  noise  of  twenty  miles  new  or 
old  purchase. 

"  Let  us  consider,  if  Niswosakit  and  Wayunckeke,  and  the  land 
thereabout,  may  not  afford  a  new^  and  comfortable  plantation,  which 
we  may  go  through  with  an  effectual  endeavor  for  true  public  good. 
To  this  end,  I  pray  you  consider,  that  the  inhabitants  of  these  parts, 
with  most  of  the  Coweset  and  Nipmucks,  have  long  since  forsaken 
the  Narraganset  sachems  and  subjected  themselves  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts. And  yet  they  are  free  to  sell  their  lands  to  any  w^hom 
the  Massachusetts  shall  not  protest  against.  To  this  end  (observing 
their  often  flights,  and  to  stop  their  running  to  the  Massachusetts) 
I  have  parlied  with  them,  and  find  that  about  thirty  pounds  will 
cause  them  to  leave  those  parts,  and  yield  peaceable  possession.  I 
suppose,  then,  that  the  town  may  do  well  to  give  leave  to  about 
twenty  of  your  inhabitants  (of  which  I  offer  to  be  one,  and  know 
others  walling)  to  lay  down  thirty  shillings  a  man  toward  the  pur- 
chase. Let  every  one  of  this  number  have  liberty  to  remove  him- 
self, or  to  place  a  child  or  friend  there.  Let  every  person  who  shall 
afterward  be  received  into  the  purchase  lay  dowm  tliirty  shillings, 
as  hath  been  done  in  Providence,  which  may  be  paid  (by  some  order 
agreed  on)  to  such  as  lately  have  disbursed  monies  unto  the  effect- 
ing of  this.  I  offer,  gratis,  my  time  and  pains,  in  hope  tha.isuch  as 
want  may  have  a  comfortalale  supply  amongst  us,  and  others  made 
room  for,  who  may  be  glad  of  shelter  also. 
"  Yours  to  serve  you, 

'KROGER  WILLIAMS. 
27,  8,  60  (so  called.y  

"  Providence,  13,  10,  61  (so  called.) 
"  1.  I  testify  and  declare,  in  the  holy  presence  of  God,  that  when 
at  my  first  coming  into  these  parts,  I  obtained  the  lands  of  Seekonk 
of  Ousamaquin,  the  then  chief  sachem  on  that  side,  the  Governor 
of  Plymouth  (Mr.  Winslow)  wrote  to  me,  in  the  name  of  their  gov- 
ernment, their  claim  of  Seekonk  to  be   in  their  jurisdiction,  as  also 

35 


406  APPENDIX. 

their  advice  to  remove  but  over  the  river  unto  this  side,  (where 
now,  by  God's  merciful  providence,  we  are,)  and  then  I  should  be 
out  of  their  claim,  and  be  as  free  as  themselves,  and  loving  neigh- 
bors together. 

''  2.  After  I  had  obtained  this  place,  now  called  Providence,  of 
Canonicus  and  Miantinomo,  the  chief  Narraganset  sachems  deceas- 
ed, Ousamaquin,  the  sachem  afc^-esaid,  also  deceased,  laid  his  claim 
to  this  place  also.  This  forced  me  to  repair  to  the  Narraganset 
sachems  aforesaid,  who  declared  that  Ousamaquin  was  their  subject, 
and  had  solemnly  himself,  in  person,  w^ith  ,  subjected  him- 

self and  his  lands  unto  them  at  the  Narraganset :  only  now  he 
seemed  to  revolt  from  his  loyalties  under  the  shelter  of  the  English 
at  Plymouth. 

"  3.  This  I  declared  from  the  Narraganset  sachems  to  Ousama- 
quin, who,  without  any  stick,  acknowledged  it  to  be  true  that  he  had 
so  subjected  as  the  Narraganset  sachems  affirmed  ;  but  withal,  he  af- 
firmed that  he  was  not  subdued  by  war,  which  himself  and  his  father 
had  maintained  against  the  Narragansets,  but  God,  said  he,  subdued 
me  by  a  plague,  which  swept  away  my  people,  and  forced  me  to 
yield. 

'•  4.  This  conviction  and  confession  of  his,  together  with  gratui- 
ties to  himself  and  brethren  and  followers,  made  him  often  profess, 
that  he  was  pleased  that  I  should  here  be  his  neighbor,  and  that 
rather  because  he  and  I  had  been  great  friends  at  Plymouth,  and 
also  because  that  his  and  my  friends  at  Plymouth  advised  him  to  be 
at  peace  and  friendship  with  me,  and  he  hoped  that  our  children 
after  us  would  be  good  friends  together. 

''  5.  And  whereas,  there  hath  been  often  spread  of  Providence 
falling  within  Plymouth  jurisdiction,  by  virtue  of  Ousamaquin's 
claims,  I  add  unto  the  testimony  abovesaid,  that  the  Governor,  Mr. 
Bradford,  and  other  of  their  magistrates,  declared  unto  me,  both  by 
conference  and  writing,  that  they  and  their  government  were  satis- 
fied, and  resolved  never  to  molest  Providence,  nor  to  claim  beyond 
Seekonk,  but  to  continue  loving  friends  and  neighbors  (amongst  the 
barbarians)  together. 

"  This  is  the  true  sum  and  substance  of  many  passages  between 
our  countrymen  of  Plymouth  and  Ousamaquin  and  me. 

ROGER  WILLIAMS." 


[Copied  from  3  His.  Col.  i.  p.  70.] 

'•  Providence,  16,  8,  76,  (ut  vidgo.) 
-  Sir, 
"  With  my  humble  and  loving  respects  to  yourself  and  other  hon- 
ored friends,  &c.  [  thought  fit  to  tell  you  what  the  providence  of 
tlie  Most  High  hath  brought  to  my  hand  the  evening  before  yester- 
day. Two  Indian  childien  were  brought  to  me  by  one  Thomas 
Clements,  who  had  his  house  burnt  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
He  was  in  his  orchard,  and  two  Indian  children  came  boldly  to  him, 
the  boy  being  about  seven  or  eight,  and  the  girl  (his  sister)  three  or 
four  years  old.  The  boy  tells  me,  that  a  youth,  one  Mittonan,  brought 
them  to  the  sight  of  Thomas  Clements,  and  bid  them  goto  that  man, 
and  he  would  give  them  bread.     He  saith  his  father  and  mother 


APPENDIX.  407 

were  taken  by  the  Pequods  and  Mohcgans  about  ten  weeks  ago,  as 
tliey  were  clamming  (witli  many  more  Indians)  at  Cowcset ;  that  their 
dwelling  was  and  is  at  a  place  called  Mitlaubscut ;  that  it  is  upon  a 
branch  of  Pawtuxet  river,  to  Coweset  (their  nearest  saltwater)  about 
seven  or  eight  miles;  that  there  are  about  twenty  houses.  I  cannot 
learn  of  him  that  there  are  above  twenty  men,  beside  women  and  chil- 
dren ;  that  they  live  on  ground-nuts,  &c.  and  deer;  that  Aawayse- 
waukit  is  their  sachem;  and  twelve  days  ago  he  sent  his  son,  Wun- 
nawmeneeskat,  to  Uncas,  with  a  present  of  a  basket  or  two  of  wam- 
pum. 1  know  this  sachem  is  much  related  to  Plymouth,  to  whom 
he  is  said  to  be  subject,  but  he  said,  (as  all  of  them  do)  [he]  deposit- 
ed his  land.  I  know  what  bargains  he  made  with  the  Browns  and 
Willets  and  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  men,  and  the  controver- 
sies between  the  Narragansets  and  them,  about  those  lands.  I  know 
the  talk  abroad  of  the  right  of  the  three  united  colonies  (by  conquest) 
to  this  land,  and  the  plea  of  Rhode-Island  by  the  charter  and  com- 
missioners. I  humbly  desire  that  this  party  may  be  brought  in ;  the 
country  improved  (if  God  in  mercy  so  please  ;)  the  English  not  differ 
about  it  and  complaints  run  to  the  King  (to  unknown  trouble,  charge 
and  hazard,  &c.)  and  therefore  I  humbly  beg  of  God  that  a  commit- 
tee from  the  four  colonies  may  (by  way  of  prudent  and  godly  wis- 
dom) prevent  many  inconveniences  and  mischiefs.  I  write  the  sum 
of  this  to  the  Governors  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode-Island,  and 
humbly  beg  of  the  Father  of  mercies  to  guide  you  in  mercy,  for  his 
mercy  sake. 

'^  Sir,  your  unworthy, 

"  R.  W. 

*•'  Excuse  my  want  of  paper. 

<'  This  boy  saith,  there  is  another  town  to  the  north-east  of  them, 
with  more  houses  than  twenty,  who,  'tis  like,  correspond  to  the 
eastward. 

"  To  the  much  honored  the  Governor  Leverett,  at  Boston,  or  the 
Governor  Winslow,  at  Plymouth,  present." 


The  following  document  was  presented  to  the  Court  of  Commis- 
sioners, mentioned  on  page  298  of  this  volume.  It  is  inserted  as 
valuable,  though  mutilated  and  containing  severe  remarks  on  Mr. 
Harris'  conduct : 

"  The  following  is  a  true  copy  of  an  original  manuscript,  which  is 
in  the  hand  writing  of  Roger  Williams,  and  contains  all  that  is  writ- 
ten on  one  sheet  in  my  possession  :  the  remainder  of  the  original 
must  have  been  contained  in  another  sheet  which  was  attached,  but 
that  is  unfortunately  lost,  it  never  having  come  into  my  possession. 
The  original  is  much  worn  and  broken  in  the  folds,  and  several  lines 
required  great  care  and  attention  to  trace  them,  but  I  am  confident 
that  all  that  is  written  here  is  contained  in  the  original. 

''  JOHN  HOWLAND. 

Providence,  January  30,  1832." 

"  Providence,  18,  8, 1677,  (ut  vulgo.) 
"  Honored  Gentlemen, 
"  My  humble  respects  presented,  with  congratulations  and  prayers 


408  APPENDIX. 

to  the  Most  High,  for  your  merciful  preservations  in  and  through 
these  late  bloody  and  burning  times,  the  peaceable  travelling  and 
assembling  amongst  the  ruins  and  rubbish  of  these  late  desolations, 
which  the  Most  High  hath  justly  brought  upon  us.  I  crave  your 
gentle  leave  to  tell  you,  that  I  humbly  conceive  I  am  called  of  God 
to  present  your  wisdoms  with  what  light  I  can,  to  make  your  diffi- 
culties and  travails  the  easier.  I  am  sore  grieved  that  a  self-seeking 
contentious  soul,  who  has  long  afflicted  this  town  and  colony,  should 
now,  with  his  unseasonable  and  unjust  clamor,  afflict  our  Royal  Sov- 
ereign, his  honorable  Council,  New  and  Old  England,  and  now 
your  honored  selves,  with  these  his  contentious  courses.  For  my- 
self, it  hath  pleased  God  to  vouchsafe  me  knowledge  and  experience 
of  his  providences  in  these  parts,  so  that  I  should  be  ungratefully 
and  treacherously  silent  at  such  a  time.  When  his  Majesty's  Com- 
missioners, Col.  Nichols,  &c.  were  here,  I  was  chosen  by  this  colony, 
one  of  the  commissioners  to  treat  with  them  and  with  the  commis- 
sioners from  Plymouth,  who  then  were  their  honored  Governor  de- 
ceased, and  honored  present  Governor,  about  our  bounds.  It  then 
pleased  the  Father  of  mercies,  in  whose  most  high  and  holy  hands 
the  hearts  of  all  men  are,  to  give  me  such  favor  in  their  eyes,  that 
afterward,  at  a  great  assembly  at  Warwick,  where  (that  firebrand) 
Philip,  his  whole  country,  was  challenged  by  the  Narraganset 
sachems,  I  was  sent  for,  and  declared  such  transactions  between  old 
Canonicus  and  Ousamaqain,  that  the  commissioners  were  satisfied, 
and  confirmed  unto  the  ungrateful  monster  his  country.  The  Nar- 
raganset sachems  (prompted  by  some  English)  told  the  commissioners, 
that  Mr.  Williams  was  but  one  witness,  but  the  commissioners 
answered  that  they  had  such  experience  of  my  knowledge  in  these 
parts,  and  fidelity,  that  they  valued  my  testimony  as  much  as  twenty 
witnesses. 

"  Among  so  many  passages  since  W.  Har.  (so  long  ago)  kindled 
the  fires  of  contention,  give  me  leave  to  trouble  you  with  one,  when 
if  W.  H.  had  any  desire  by  equal  and  peaceable  converse  with  men, 
this  fire  had  been  quenched  ;  our  General  Court,  Mishauntatuk  men 
and  W.  Har.  agreed  that  arbitration  should  heal  this  old  sore.  Ar- 
bitrators were  chosen,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Willet  was  chosen  umpire. 
He,  when  they  met,  told  them  that  the  arbitrators  should  consider 
every  plea  with  equity,  and  allot  to  every  one  what  the  arbitrators' 
consciences  told  them  was  right  and  equal.  Mishauntatuk  men 
yielded,  W.  Carpenter,  then  one  with  W.  Har.,  yielded.  W.  Har. 
cried  out  no ;  he  was  resolved,  all  or  none  ;  so  the  honored  soul,  Mr. 
Willet  (as  he  himself  told  me)  could  not  proceed,  but  was  forced  to 
draw  up  a  protest  to  acquit  himself  and  the  arbitrators  from  this  trust, 
that  the  obstruction  might  only  be  laid  on  W.  Har.  his  shoulders, 
concerning  whom  a  volume  might  be  written,  of  his  furious,  covet- 
ous, and  contentious  domineering  over  his  poor  neighbors.  I  have 
presented  a  character  of  him  to  his  Majesty,  (in  defence  of  myself 
against  him)  in  my  narrative  against  George  Fox,  printed  at  Boston. 
I  think  it  not  seasonable  here  to  trouble  your  patience  with  particu- 
lars as  to  the  matter.  I  humbly  refer  myself  to  my  large  testimony, 
given  in  writing,  at  a  Court  of  Trials  on  the  Island,  before  the  honored 
gentleman,  deceased,  Mr.  W.  Brenton,  then  Governor.   At  the  sam*» 


APPENDIX.  409 

time  Mr.  William  Arnold,  father  to  our  honored  present  Governor, 
and  Stukely  Westcott,  father  to  our  Governor's  wife,  gave  in  tlieir 
testimony  with  mine,  and  W.  Har.  was  cast.  In  tliat  testimony,  I 
declare  not  only  how  unrighteous,  but  also  how  simple  is  W.  Harris 
his  ground  of  pleading,  viz.  after  Miantinomo  had  set  us  our  bounds 
here  in  his  own  person,  because  of  the  envious  clamors  of  some 
against  mj'self,  one  amongst  us  (not  I)  recorded  a  testimony  or 
memorandum  of  a  courtesy  added  (upon  request)  by  the  sachem,  in 
these  words,  vp  stream  without  limits.  The  courtesy  was  requested  and 
granted,  that  being  shortened  in  bounds  by  the  sachem  because  of 
the  Indians  about  us,  it  might  be  no  offence  if  our  few  cows  fed  up 
the  rivers  where  nobody  dwelt,  and  home  again  at  night.  This 
hasty,  unadvised  memorandum  W.  H.  interprets  of  bounds  set  to  our 
town  by  the  sachems  ;  but  he  would  set  no  bounds  to  our  cattle,  but 
up  the  streams  so  far  as  they  branched  or  run,  so  far  all  the  meadows, 
and  at  last  all  the  uplands,  must  be  drawn  into  this  accidental  cour- 
tesy, and  yet,  upon  no  consideration  given,  nor  the  sachem's  knowl- 
edge or  hand,  nor  witnesses,  nor  date,  nor  for  what  term  of  time 
this  kindness  should  continue. 

'•  Second.  Ln  m}^  testimony,  I  have  declared  that  Miantinomo  hav- 
ing set  such  short  bounds  (because  of  the  Indians)  upon  my  motion, 
payments  were  given  by  us  to  Alexander  and  Philip,  and  the  Nar- 
raganset  sachems,  near  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  in  their  pay, 
for  inland  enlargements,  according  to  leave  granted  us  by  the 
General  Court  upon  our  petition.  This  after  purchase  and  satisfac- 
tion to  all  claimers,  W.  Harris  puts  a  rotten  title  upon  it,  and  calls 
it  confirmation,  a  confirmation  of  the  title  and  grant  of  up  streams 
icithout  limits  ;  but  all  the  sachems  and  Indians,  when  they  heard  of 
such  an  interpretation,  they  cried  commcohin,  lying  and  stealing,  as 
such  a  cheat  as  stunk  in  their  pagan  nostrils. 

"  Honored  Sirs,  let  me  now  add  to  my  testimony,  a  list  of  several 
persons  which  the  right  and  disposing  of  all  or  considerable  part  of 
these  Narragansets,  and  Coweset.  and  Nipmuck  lands,  &c. 

'•  First.  The  colony  of  Connecticut,  by  the  King's  grant  and  char- 
ter, by  the  late  wars,  wherein  they  were  honorably  assistant. 

"  Second.  The  colony  of  Plymouth,  by  virtue  of  Tacommaicon's 
surrender  of  his  person  and  lands  to  their  protection,  and  I  have  seen 
a  letter  from  the  present  Governor  Winslow,  to  Mr.  Richard  Smith, 
about  the  matter. 

'•  Third.  The  colony  of  Pihode-Island  and  Providence  Plantations, 
by  grant  from  his  Majesty  and  confirmation  from  his  Majesty's  com- 
missioners, who  called  these  lands  the  King's  Province,  and  com- 
mitted the  ordering  of  it  to  this  colony,  until  his  Majesty  further 
order. 

"  Fourth.  Many  eminent  gentlemen  of  the  Massachusetts  and 
other  colonies,  claim  by  a  mortgage  and  forfeiture  of  all  lands  belong- 
ing to  Narraganset. 

'•  Fifth.  Our  honored  Governor,  Mr.  Arnold,  and  divers  with  him, 
are  out  of  a  round  sum  of  money  and  cost,  about  a  purchase  from 
Tacummanan. 

"  Sixth.  The  like  claim  was  and  is  made  by  Mr.  John  Brown, 
and  Mr.  Thomas  Willet,  honored  gentlemen  and  their  successors, 

35* 


410  APPENDIX. 

*  *  *  from  purchase  with  Tacummanan,  and  I  have  seen  their 
deeds,  and  Col.  Nichols  his  confirmation  of  them,  under  hand  and 
seal,  in  the  name  of  the  King's  Majesty. 

"  Seventh.  Wm.  Harris  pleads  vp  streams  without  limits,  and 
confirmation  from  the  other  sachems  of  the  up  streams,  ^-c. 

'*  Eighth.  Mishuntatuk  men  claim  by  purchase  from  Indians  by 
possession,  buildings,  &c.  *     *     *     *   [worn  out  and  oblit.]    *     *    * 

"Ninth.  Captain  Hubbard  and  some  others,  of  Hingham  *  *  * 
by  purchase  from  the  Indians. 

'^  Tenth.  John  Tours,  of  Hingham,  by  three  purchases  from  In- 
dians. 

''  Eleventh.  William  Vaughan,  of  Newport,  and  others,  by  Indian 
purchase 

[The  next  following  No.  is  13 :    there  is  no  12.] 

"  Thirteenth.  Randall,  of  Scituate,*  and  White,  of  Taunton,  and 
others,  by  purchase  from  Indians. 

"  Fourteenth.  Edward  Inman,  of  Providence,  by  purchase  from  the 
natives. 

"  Fifteenth.  The  town  of  Warwick,  who  challenge  twenty  miles, 
about  part  of  which.  Will.  Harris  contending  with  them,  it  is  said, 
was  the  first  occasion  of  W.  Har.  falling  in  love  with  this  his 
monstrous  Diana  up  streams  icithout  limits,  that  so  he  might  antedate 
and  prevent  (as  he  speaks)  the  blades  of  Warwick. 

"  Sixteenth.  The  town  of  Providence,  by  virtue  of  Canonicus' 
and  Miantinomo's  grant  renewed  to  me  again  and  again,  viz.  of  as 
large  a  plantation  and  accommodation  as  any  town  in  the  country 
of  NcAv-England.  It  is  known  what  favor  God  pleased  to  give  me 
with  old  Canonicus,  (though  at  a  dear-bought  rate)  so  that  I  had 
what  I  Avould  (so  that  I  observed  my  times  of  moderation ;)  but  two 
or  three  envious  and  ungrateful  souls  among  us  cried  out,  What  is 
R.  Williams .?  We  will  have  the  sachem  come  and  set  our  bounds 
for  us;  which  he  did,  and  (because  of  his  Indians  round  about  us) 
so  sudden  and  so  short,  that  we  were  forced  to  petition  to  our  Gen- 
eral Court  for  enlargement. 

''  Honored  Sirs,  there  be  other  claims,  and  therefore  I  presume 
your  wisdoms  will  send  forth  your  proclamations  to  all  the  colonies, 
that  all  the  claims  may  come  in  before  your  next  meeting ;  and  Oh 
that  it  would  please  the  Most  High  to  move  the  colonies'  hearts  to 
empower  you,  and  move  your  hearts  to  be  willing,  (being  honora- 
bly rewarded)  and  the  hearts  of  the  claimers  to  acquiesce  and  rest  in 
your  determination.  And  Oh  let  not  the  colonies  of  Connecticut 
and  Rhode-Island  to  be  offended,  if  I  humbly  beseech  them,  for 
God's  sake,  for  the  King's  sake,  for  the  country  of  New-England's 
sake,  ana  for  their  own  souls'  and  selves'  and  posterity's  sakes,  to 
prevent  any  more  complaints  and  clamors  to  the  King's  Majesty, 
and  agree  to  submit  their  differences  to  the  wisdoms  of  such  solemn 
commissioners  chosen  out  of  the  whole  country.  I  know  there  are 
objections,  but  also  know  that  love  to  God,  love  to  the  country  and 
posterity,  will  conquer  greater  matters,  and  I  believe   the   King's 

*  The  Scituate  here  mentioned,  must  be  in  Massachusetts,  as  there  was  no  town  of 
th.it  name  in  Hhode-lslaud  till  1730. 


APPENDIX.  411 

Majesty,  himself,  will  give  us  thanks  for  sparing  him  and  his  hon- 
orable Council  from  being  troubled  with  us. 

••  Honored  gentlemen,  if  his  Majesty  and  honorable  Council  knew 
how  against  all  law  of  England,  Wm.  Harris  thus  affects  New  and 
Old  England,  viz.  that  a  vast  country  should  be  purchased,  and  yet 
be  but  a  poor  courtesy  from  one  sachem,  who  understood  no  such 
thing,  nor  they  that  begged  it  of  him,  who  had  not,  nor  asked  any 
consideration  for  it,  who  was  not  desired  to  set  his  hand  to  it,  nor 
did;  nor  are  there  the  hands  of  witnesses,  but  the  parties  them- 
selves, nor  no  date,  nor  term  of  time,  for  the  use  of  feeding 
cows,  up  streams  without  limits,  and  yet  these  words,  (up  streams 
without  Ihnits)  by  a  sudden  and  unwary  hand  so  written,  must  be 
the  ground  of  W.  Har.  this  raising  a  fire  about  these  thirty  years 
unquenchable.  If  his  Majesty  and  Council  knew  how  many  of 
his  good  subjects  are  claimers  and  competitors  to  these  lands  and 
meadows  up  the  streams  of  Pawtuxet  and  Pawtucket,  though  only  one 
comes  thus  clamoring  to  him,  to  cheat  all  the  rest.  If  his  Majesty 
and  Council  knew  this  confirmation  W.  H.  talks  of,  what  a  grand 
cheat  it  is,  stinking  in  the  nostrils  of  all  Indians,  who  subscribed  to 
and  only  confirmed  only  such  bounds  as  were  formerly  given  us, 
and  W.  Harris  clamors  that  they  confirmed  Miantinomo's  grant  of 
up  streams  without  limits,  a  thing  which  they  abhor  to  hear  of,  and 
(amonst  others)  was  one  great  occasion  of  their  late  great  burning 
and  slaughtering  of  us."  #  *  *  ^ 


"  JVarraganset,  lOi/t  June,  1682  (ut  vulgo.) 
'•  I  testify,  as  in  the  presence  of  the  all-making  and  all-seeing 
God,  that  about  fifty  years  since,  I  coming  into  this  Narraganset 
country,  I  found  a  great  contest  betAveen  three  sachems,  two  (to  wit, 
Canonicus  and  Miantinomo)  were  against  Ousamaquin,  on  Ply- 
mouth side,  I  was  forced  to  travel  between  them  three,  to  pacify,  to 
satisfy  all  their  and  their  dependents'  spirits  of  my  honest  intentions 
to  live  peaceably  by  them.  I  testify,  that  it  was  the  general  and 
constant  declaration,  that  Canonicus  his  father  had  three  sons, 
whereof  Canonicus  was  the  heir,  and  his  youngest  brother's  son, 
Miantinomo,  (because  of  youth.)  was  his  marshal  and  executioner, 
and  did  nothing  without  his  uncle  Canonicus'  consent ;  and  there- 
fore I  declare  to  posterity,  that  were  it  not  for  the  favor  God  gave 
me  with  Canonicus,  none  of  these  parts,  no,  not  Rhode-Island,  had 
been  purchased  or  obtained,  for  I  never  got  any  thing  out  of  Canon- 
icus but  by  gift.  I  also  profess,  that,  very  inquisitive  of  what 
the  title  or  denomination  Narraganset  should  come,  I  heard  that 
Narraganset  was  so  named  from  a  little  island  between  Puttiquom- 
scut  and  Musquomacuk  on  the  sea  and  fresh  water  side.  I  went  on 
purpose  to  see  it ;  and  about  the  place  called  Sugar-Loaf  Hill,  I 
saw  it.  and  was  within  a  pole  of  it,  but  could  not  learn  why  it  was 
called  Narraganset.  I  had  learnt,  that  the  Massachusetts  was 
called  so,  from  the  Blue  Hills,  a  little  island  thereabout ;  and  Ca- 
nonicus' father  and  ancestors,  living  in  those  southern  parts,  trans- 
ferred and  brought  their  authority  and  name  into  those  northern 
parts,  all  along  by  the  sea-side,  as  appears  by  the  great  destruction 
of  wood  all  along  near  the  sea-side  ;  and  I  desire  posterity  to  see 
the  gracious  hand  of  the  Most  High,  (in  whose  hands  are  all  hearts) 


412  APPENDIX. 

that  when  the  hearts  of  my  countrymen  and  friends  and  brethren 
failed  me,  his  infinite  wisdom  and  merits  stirred  up  the  barbarous 
heart  of  Canonicus  to  love  me  as  his  son  to  his  last  gasp,  by  which 
means  I  had  not  only  Miantinomo  and  all  the  lowest  sachems  my 
friends,  but  Ousamaquin  also,  who,  because  of  my  great  friendship 
with  him  at  Plymouth,  and  the  authority  of  Canonicus,  consented 
freely,  b^ing  also  well  gratified  by  me,  to  the  Governor  Winthrop 
and  my  enjoyment  of  Prudence,  yea  of  Providence  itself,  and  all 
the  other  lands  1  procured  of  Canonicus  which  were  upon  the 
point,  and  in  effect  whatsoever  I  desired  of  him ;  and  I  never  de- 
nied him  or  Miantinomo  whatever  they  desired  of  me  as  to  goods  or 
gifts  or  use  of  my  boats  or  pinnace,  and  the  travels  of  my  own  per- 
son, day  and  night,  which,  though  men  know  not,  nor  care  to  know, 
yet  the  all-seeing  Eye  hath  seen  it,  and  his  all-powerful  hand  hath 
helped  me.     Blessed  be  his  holy  name  to  eternity. 

ROGER  WILLIAMS." 

"  September  28th,  1704.  I  then,  being  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Na- 
thaniel Coddington,  there  being  presented  with  this  written  paper, 
which  I  attest,  upon  oath,  to  be  my  father's  own  hand  writing. 

JOSEPH  WILLIAMS,  Assistants 
"  February  11th,  1705.     True  copy  of  the  original,  placed  to  rec- 
ord, and  examined  per  me. 

"  WESTON  CLARKE,  Recorder:' 


Note  D.  p.  180. 

[From  Hazard's  State  Papers,  vol.  i.] 
Report  of  Arbitrators  at  Providence,  containing  proposals   for  a 
form  of  government : 

"  Providence,  the  27th  of  the  5th  month,  ) 
in  the  ijear  (so  called)  1640.  3 
"  We,  Robert  Coles,  Chad  Browne,  William  Harris,  and  John 
Warren,  being  freely  chosen  by  the  consent  of  our  loving  friends 
and  neighbors,  the  inhabitants  of  this  town  of  Providence,  having 
many  differences  amongst  us,  they  being  freely  willing,  and  also 
bound  themselves  to  stand  to  our  arbitration,  in  all  differences 
amongst  us,  to  rest  contented  in  our  determination,  being  so  be- 
trusted,  we  have  seriously  and  carefully  endeavored  to  weigh  and 
consider  all  these  differences,  being  desirous  to  bring  to  unity  and 
peace,  although  our  abilities  are  far  short  in  the  due  examination  of 
such  weighty  things,  yet  so  far  as  we  conceive  in  laying  all  things 
together,  we  have  gone  the  fairest  and  the  equallest  way  to  produce 
our  peace. 

"  I.  Agreed.  We  have,  with  one  consent,  agreed,  that  in  the 
parting  those  particular  proprieties  which  some  of  our  friends  and 
neighbors  have  in  Pawtuxet  from  the  general  common  of  our  town 
of  Providence,  to  run  upon  a  straight  line  upon  a  fresh  spring,  be- 
ing in  the  gully  at  the  head  of  that  cove,  running  by  that  point  of 
land  called  Sassafras,  unto  the  town  of  Mashapaug,  to  an  oak  tree 
standing  near  unto  the  corn-field,  being  at  this  time  the   nearest 


APPENDIX.  413 

corn-field  unto  Pawtuxet,  the  oak  tree  having  four  marks  with  an 
axe,  till  some  other  landmark  be  set  for  a  certain  bound.  Also  we 
agree,  that  if  any  meadow  ground  lying  and  joining  to  that  mead- 
ow that  borders  upon  the  river  of  Pawtuxet,  come  within  the  afore- 
said line,  which  will  not  come  within  a  straight  line  from  long  cove 
to  the  marked  tree,  then  for  that  meadow  to  belong  to  Pawtuxet, 
and  so  beyond  the  town  of  Mashapaug  from  the  oak  tree  between 
the  two  fresh  rivers  Pawtuxet  and  Wanasquatucket,  of  an  even 
distance. 

'•  II.  Agreed.  We  have  with  one  consent  agreed  that  for  the  dis- 
posing of  those  lands  that  shall  be  disposed,  belonging  to  this  town  of 
Providence,  to  be  in  the  whole  inhabitants  by  the  choice  of  five  men 
for  general  disposal,  to  be  betrusted  with  disposal  of  lands  and  also 
of  the  town's  stock,  and  all  general  things,  and  not  to  receive  in 
any  in  six  days  as  townsmen,  but  first  to  give  the  inhabitants  notice 
to  consider  if  any  have  just  cause  to  show  against  the  receiving  of 
him,  as  you  can  apprehend,  and  to  receive  none  but  such  as  sub- 
scribe to  this  our  determination.  Also  we  agree,  that  if  any  of  our 
neighbors  do  apprehend  himself  wronged  by  these  or  any  of  these 
five  disposers,  that  at  the  general  town  meeting  he  may  have  a 
trial. 

"  Also,  we  agree  for  the  town  to  choose,  beside  the  other  five 
men,  one  or  more  to  keep  record  of  all  things  belonging  to  the  town 
and  lying  in  common. 

"  We  agree,  as  formerly  hath  been  the  liberties  of  the  town,  so 
still  to  hold  forth  liberty  of  conscience. 

'•  III.  Agreed,  that  after  many  considerations  and  consultations 
of  our  own  State  and  also  of  other  States  abroad,  in  way  of  govern- 
ment, we  apprehend  no  way  so  suitable  to  our  condition  as  govern- 
ment by  way  of  arbitration.  But  if  men  agree  themselves  by  arbi- 
tration, no  State  we  know  of  disallows  that,  neither  do  we.  But  if 
men  refuse  that  which  is  but  common  humanity  between  man  and 
man,  then  to  compel  such  unreasonable  persons  to  a  reasonable  way, 
we  agree  that  the  five  disposers  shall  have  power  to  compel  him 
either  to  choose  two  men  himself,  or  if  he  refuse,  for  them  to  choose 
two  men  to  arbitrate  his  cause,  and  if  these  four  men  chosen  by 
every  party  do  end  the  cause,  then  to  see  their  determination  per- 
formed, and  the  faultive  to  pay  the  arbitrators  for  their  time  spent 
in  it.  But  if  these  four  men  do  not  end  it,  then  for  the  five  dispos- 
ers to  choose  three  men  to  put  an  end  to  it.  And  for  the  certainty 
hereof  we  agree  the  major  part  of  the  five  disposers  to  choose  the 
three  men,  and  the  major  part  of  the  three  men  to  end  the  cause, 
having  power  from  the  five  disposers,  by  a  note  under  their  hand, 
to  perform  it ;  and  the  faultive  not  agreeing  in  the  first  to  pay  the 
charge  of  the  last,  and  for  the  arbitrators  to  follow  no  employment 
until  the  cause  be  ended,  without  consent  of  the  whole  that  have 
to  do  with  the  cause. 

'•  Instance.  In  the  first  arbitration,  the  offender  may  offer  rea- 
sonable terms  of  peace,  and  the  offended  may  exact  upon  him,  and 
refuse  and  trouble  men  beyond  reasonable  satisfaction  ;  so  for  the 
last  arbitrators  to  judge  where  the  fault  was,  in  not  agreeing  in  the 
first,  to  pay  the  charge  in  the  last. 

*' IV.  Agreed,   that  if  any  person   damnify   any   man,   either   in 


414  APPENDIX. 

goods  or  good  name,  and  the  person  offended  follow  not  the  cause 
upon  the  offender,  that  if  any  person  give  notice  to  the  five  dispos- 
ers, they  shall  call  the  party  delinquent  to  answer  by  arbitration. 

'•  Instance.  Thus,  if  any  person  abuse  another  in  person  or 
goods,  may  be  for  peace  sake  a  man  will  at  present  put  it  up,  and  it 
may  so  be  resolve  to  revenge  :  therefore,  for  the  peace  of  the  State, 
the  disposers  are  to  look  to  it  in  the  first  place. 

"  V.  Agreed,  for  all  the  whole  inhabitants  to  combine  ourselves 
to  assist  any  man  in  the  pursuit  of  any  party  delinquent,  with  all 
our  best  endeavors  to  attack  him  ;  but  if  any  man  raise  a  hubbub, 
and  there  be  no  just  cause,  then  for  the  party  that  raised  the  hub- 
bub to  satisfy  men  for  their  time  lost  in  it. 

"  VI.  Agreed,  that  if  any  man  have  a  difference  with  any  of  the 
five  disposers,  which  cannot  be  deferred  till  general  meeting  of  the 
town,  then  he  may  have  the  clerk  call  the  town  together  at  his 
for  a  trial. 

''  Instance.  It  may  be  a  man  may  be  to  depart  the  land,  or  to  a 
far  part  of  the  land,  or  his  estate  may  lie  upon  a  speedy  trial,  or  the 
like  case  may  fall  out. 

"  VII.  Agreed,  that  the  town,  by  five  men,  shall  give  every  man 
a  deed  of  all  his  lands  lying  within  the  bounds  of  the  plantation  to 
hold  it  by  for  after  ages. 

"  VIII.  Agreed,  that  the  five  disposers  shall,  from  the  date  here- 
of, meet  every  month  day  upon  general  things,  and  at  the  quarter 
day  to  yield  a  new  choice,  and  give  up  their  old  accounts. 

"  IX.  Agreed,  that  the  clerk  shall  call  the  five  disposers  together 
at  the  month  day,  and  the  general  town  together  every  quarter,  to 
meet  upon  general  occasions,  from  the  date  hereof. 

"  X.  Agreed,  that  the  clerk  is  to  receive  for  every  cause  that 
comes  to  the  town  for  a  trial,  4d. ;  for  making  each  deed,  \2d. ;  and 
to  give  up  the  book  to  the  town  at  the  year's  end,  and  yield  to  a 
new  choice. 

"  XL  Agreed,  that  all  acts  of  disposal  on  both  sides  to  stand 

since  the  difference. 

"  XII.  Agreed,  that  every  man  who  hath  not  paid  in  his  purchase 
money  lor  his  plantation,  shall  make  up  his  \0s.  to  be  305.  equal 
with  the  first  purchases ;  and  for  all  that  are  received  townsmen 
hereafter  to  pay  the  like  sum  of  money  to  the  town  stock. 

"  These  being  those  things  we  have  generally  concluded  on  for 
our  peace,  we  desiring  our  loving  friends  to  receive  as  our  absolute 
determination,  laying  ourselves  down  as  subject  to  it." 


Note  E.  page  198 

The  first  Charter,  copied  from  2  His.  Coll.  ix.  pp.  185-8. 

"  Whereas,  by  an  ordinance  of  the  Lords  and  Commons,  now  as- 
sembled in  Parliament,  bearing  date  the  second  day  of  November, 
Anno  Domini  1643,  Robert,  Earl  of  Warwick,  is  constituted,  and 
ordained  governor  in  chief,  and  lord  high  admiral  of  all  those  islands 
and  other  plantations  inhabited  or  planted  by,  or  belonging  to  any 
his  Majesty  the  King  of  England's  subjects,  (or  which   hereafter 


APPENDIX.  415 

may  be  inhabited  and  planted  by,  or  belong  to  them)  within  the 
bounds,  and  upon  the  coasts  of  America: 

'•And  whereas  the  said  Lords  have  thought  fit  and  thereby  ordained 
that  Philip  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Edward  Earl  of  Manchester,  William 
Viscount,  Say  and  Seal,  Philip  Lord  Wharton,  John  Lord  Rolle, 
members  of  the  House  of  Peers;  Sir  Gilbert  Gerrard,  Baronet,  Sir 
Arthur  Haslerig,  Baronet,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  jr.  Knight,  Sir  Benja- 
min Rudyard,  Knight,  John  Pym,  Oliver  Cromwell,  Dennis  Bond, 
Miles  Corbet,  Cornelius  Holland,  Samuel  Vassal,  John  Rolle,  and 
William  Spurstow,  Esqrs.  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
should  be  commissioners  to  join  in  aid  and  assistance  with  the  said 
Earl.  And  whereas,  for  the  better  government  and  defence,  it  is 
thereby  ordained,  that  the  aforesaid  governor  and  commissioners,  or 
the  greater  number  of  them,  shall  have  power,  and  authority,  from 
time  to  time,  to  nominate,  appoint,  and  constitute  all  such  subordi- 
nate governors,  counsellors,  commanders,  officers,  and  agents,  as 
they  shall  judge  to  be  best  affected,  and  most  fit,  and  serviceable  for 
the  said  islands  and  plantations  ;  and  to  provide  for,  order  and  dispose 
all  things,  which  they  shall,  from  time  to  time,  find  most  advantage- 
ous for  the  said  plantations  ;.  and  for  the  better  security  of  the  owners 
and  inhabitants  thereof,  to  assign,  ratify,  and  confirm,  so  much  of 
their  afore-mentioned  authority  and  power,  and  in  such  manner, 
and  to  such  persons,  as  they  shall  judge  to  be  fit  for  the  better  gov- 
erning and  preserving  of  the  said  plantations  and  islands,  from  open 
violences  and  private  disturbances  and  distractions.  And  whereas 
there  is  a  tract  of  land  in  the  continent  of  America  aforesaid,  called 
by  the  name  of  Narraganset  Bay,  bordering  northward  and  north- 
east on  the  patent  of  Massachusetts,  east  and  south-east  on  Plymouth 
patent,  south  on  the  ocean,  and  on  the  west  and  northwest  by  the 
Indians  called  Nahigganneucks,  alias  Narragansets,  the  whole  tract 
extending  about  twenty-five  English  miles,  unto  the  Pequod  river 
and  country. 

"  And  whereas,  well  affected  and  industrious  English  inhabitants, 
of  the  towns  of  Providence,  Portsmouth  and  Newport,  in  the  tract 
aforesaid,  have  adventured  to  make  a  nearer  neighborhood  and 
society  with  the  great  body  of  the  Narragansets,  which  may,  in  time, 
by  the  blessing  of  God  upon  their  endeavors,  lay  a  sure  foundation 
of  happiness  to  all  America;  and  have  also  purchased,  and  are 
purchasing  of  and  amongst  the  natives,  some  other  places,  which 
may  be  convenient,  both  for  plantations,  and  also  for  building  of 
ships,  supply  of  pipe  staves,  and  other  merchandise. 

''  And  whereas  the  said  English  have  represented  their  desire  to 
the  said  Earl,  and  commissioners,  to  have  their  hopeful  beginnings 
approved  and  confirmed,  by  granting  unto  them  a  free  charter  of 
civil  incorporation  and  government ;  that  they  may  order  and  gov- 
ern their  plantation  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  maintain  justice  and 
peace,  both  among  themselves,  and  towards  all  men  with  whom 
they  shall  have  to  do.  In  due  consideration  of  the  said  premises, 
the  said  Robert,  Earl  of  Warwick,  governor  in  chief,  and  lord  high 
admiral  of  the  said  plantations,  and  the  greater  number  of  the  said 
commissioners,  whose  names  and  seals  are  hereunder  written  and 
subjoined,  out  of  a  desire  to  encourage  the  good  beginnings  of  the 
said  planters,  do,  by  the  authorit}^  of  the  aforesaid  ordinance  of  the 


416  APPENDIX. 

Lords  and  Commons,  give,  grant,  and  confirm,  to  the  aforesaid  in- 
habitants of  the  towns  of  Providence,  Portsmouth  and  Newport,  a 
free  and  absolute  charter  of  incorporation,  to  be  known  by  the  name 
of  The  Incorporation  of  Providence  Plantatiorie ,  in  the  JVarraganset 
Baij,  in  JVeic- England.  Together  with  full  power  and  authority, 
to  rule  themselves,  and  such  others  as  shall  hereafter  inhabit  within 
any  part  of  the  said  tract  of  land,  by  such  a  form  of  civil  govern- 
ment, as  by  voluntary  consent  of  all,  or  the  greater  part  of  them, 
they  shall  find  most  suitable  to  their  estate  and  condition ;  and,  for 
that  end,  to  make  and  ordain  such  civil  laws  and  constitutions,  and 
to  inflict  such  punishments  upon  transgressors,  and  for  execution 
thereof,  so  to  place,  and  displace  officers  of  justice,  as  they,  or  the 
greatest  part  of  them,  shall  by  free  consent  agree  unto.  Provided, 
nevertheless,  that  the  said  laws,  constitutions,  and  punishments,  for 
the  civil  government  of  the  said  plantations,  be  conformable  to  the 
laws  of  England,  so  far  as  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  place 
will  admit.  And  always  reserving  to  the  said  Earl,  and  commis- 
sioners, and  their  successors,  power  and  authority  for  to  dispose 
the  general  government  of  that,  as  it  stands  in  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  plantations  in  America,  as  they  shall  conceive,  from  time  to 
time,  most  conducing  to  the  general  good  of  the  said  plantations, 
the  honor  of  his  Majesty,  and  the  service  of  the  State.  And  the 
said  Earl  and  commissioners  do  further  authorize,  that  the  aforesaid 
inhabitants,  for  the  better  transacting  of  their  public  affairs,  to  make 
and  use  a  public  seal,  as  the  known  seal  of  the  Providence  Planta- 
tions, in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  in  New-England.  In  testimony 
whereof,  the  said  Robert,  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  commissioners,  have 
hereunto  set  their  hands  and  seals,  the  fourteenth  day  of  March,  in 
the  nineteenth  year  of  our  sovereign  lord  King  Charles,  and  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  God,  1643. 

'  Robert  Warwick,  H.  Vane, 

Philip  Pembroke,  Sam.  Vassal, 

Say  and  Seal,  John  Rolle, 

P.  Wharton,  Miles  Corbet, 

Arthur  Haslerig,  W.  Spurstow.*  " 

Cor.  Holland, 


Note  F.  page  226. 

The  following  document,  written,  evidently,  by  Mr.  Williams,  is 
an  appropriate  introduction  to  the  charter  of  the  town  of  Providence. 

*  It  has  been  alleged,  with  a  view  to  lessen  Mr.  Williams'  claim  to  the  honor  of  being 
the  chief  agent  in  estahlisliing  liberty  of  conscience  in  Rhode-Island,  that  the  preceding 
charter  contains  no  provision  for  the  protection  of  religious  liberty.  But  it  may  be  re- 
plied, that  the  instrument  conveyed  full  power  to  establish  any  form  of  government,  and 
enact  any  laws,  which  the  inhabitants  might  deem  proper,  provided  that  they  were  not 
repugnant  to  the  laws  of  England.  The  charter  is  in  very  general  terms.  It  preset  ibes 
no  mode  cf  civil  government,  and  omits,  of  course,  any  reference  to  religious  aflfairs. 
The  principles  of  Mr.  Williams  and  his  friends  were  well  known  to  the  gentlemen  who 
signed  the  charter.  Mr.  Williams  could  desire  nothing  more  than  entire  liberty  to  the 
innabitants  to  regulate  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  concerns  of  the  colony  according  to 
their  own  pleasure. 


APPENDIX.  417 

"  To  cur  loving  and  well-betrusted  friends  and  neighbors,  Gregory- 
Dexter,  William  Wickenden,  Thomas  Olncy,  Robert  Williams, 
Richard  Waterman,  Roger  Williams,  William  Field,  John  Greene, 
John  Smith,  John  Shippett. 

'•  We,  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  plantation  of 
Providence,  having  orderly  chosen  you  at  our  town  meeting  this 
Kith  of  the  3d  mo.  1C47,  to  appear  for  us,  at  the  General  Court  of 
this  colony,  to  be  held  at  Portsmouth,  on  PJiode-Island,  upon  the 
Idth  of  this  inst.  month,  desiring  the  Lord's  providence  for  your 
safe  arrival  there,  we  all  voluntarily  assenting,  do  hereby  give  you 
full  power  and  authority  as  followeth  :  First,  to  act  and  vote  for  us 
respectively  or  otherwise,  as  if  we  ourselves  were  in  person,  for  the 
settling  of  this  General  Court  for  the  present,  and  for  the  composing 
of  it  into  any  figure  for  the  future,  as  cause  shall  require.  Secondly, 
to  act  and  vote  for  us  as  aforesaid  in  the  choice  of  all  general  officers, 
as  need  shall  require.  Thirdly,  if  the  General  Court  shall  consist 
of  but  ten  men  for  each  town,  then  you  are  to  act  accordingly  for 
this  town ;  and  if  the  General  Court  shall  be  reduced  into  a  fewer 
number,  which,  for  divers  considerations,  we  conceive  may  be  for  the 
best,  then  we  give  you  full  power  to  choose  from  among  yourselves, 
such  a  number  of  our  loving  neighbors  as  shall  answer  the  same 
figure,  unto  whom,  being  orderly  chosen  by  you,  we  do  give  you 
power  to  transfer  this  our  commission,  giving  of  them  full  power  to 
act  and  vote  for  us,  the  inhabitants  of  this  plantation,  in  all  general 
affairs,  and  for  the  settling  of  the  island  in  peace  and  union,  and 
for  all  matters  that  shall  concern  this  particular  town,  desiring  a 
careful  respect  unto  these  ensuing  instructions.  But,  if  the  Court 
shall  consist  often  of  each  town,  then  our  desires  are,  that  this  our 
commission,  with  the  ensuing  instructions,  may  remain  entire  in 
your  hands. 

''  First.  That  we  may  have  a  true  copy  of  our  charter  assigned 
unto  us  by  the  General  Court,  for  the  proper  use  of  our  plantation. 

"  Secondly.  We  do  voluntarily  and  are  freely  willing  to  receive 
and  be  governed  by  the  laws  of  England,  together  with  the  way  of 
administration  of  them,  so  far  as  the  nature  and  constitution  of  this 
plantation  will  admit,  desiring,  so  far  as  possibly  may  be,  to  hold  a 
correspondency  with  the  whole  colony  in  that  model  that  hath  been 
lately  shown  unto  us  by  our  worthy  friends  of  the  island,  if  the 
General  Court  shall  complete  and  confirm  the  same,  or  any  other 
model  as  the  General  Court  shall  agree  upon  according  to  our 
charter. 

"  Thirdly.  We  desire  to  have  full  power  and  authority  to  transact 
all  our  home  affairs,  to  try  all  manner  of  causes  or  cases,  and  to 
execute  all  manner  of  executions  entirely  within  ourselves,  except- 
ing such  cases  and  executions  as  the  colony  shall  be  pleased  to  re- 
serve to  general  trials  and  executions. 

'•  Fourthly.  We  desire  to  have  full  pov/er  and  authority  to  choose, 
ordain,  authorize  and  confirm,  all  our  particular  town  officers,  and 
also  that  the  said  officers  shall  be  responsible  unto  our  particular 
town,  and  that  there  may  be  no  intermixture  of  general  and  partic- 
ular officers,  but  that  all  may  know  their  bounds  and  limits. 

''  Fifthly.  We  desire  to  have  an  exact  and  orderly  way  open  tor 
appeals  unto  General  Courts,  that  so,  if  any  shall  be'  justly  grieve(3[ 
36 


418  APPENDIX. 

at  any  sentence  passed  or  otherwise,  he  or  they  may  make  their 
lawful  charge  for  relief  there. 

'•  Lastly.  Whereas,  it  was  hinted  in  that  which  our  worthy 
friends  unto  us,  that  each  town  should  have  a  charter  of 

civil  incorporation,  apart,  for  the  transacting  of  particular  affairs,  if 
the  Court  shall  proceed  so  far  as  to  agitate  and  order  the  same,  then 
we  give  you  full  power,  on  our  behalf,  to  move  and  procure  any 
thing  beside  these  instructions,  that  in  your  wisdom  you  conceive 
may  tend  unto  the  general  peace  or  union  of  the  colony  and  our 
own  particular  liberties  and  privileges,  provided  you  do  all,  or  the 
Tnost  of  you,  unanimoushj  a.gxee  therein,  and  always  reserving  our 
equal  votes  and  equal  privileges  in  the  general. 

"  Thus  betrusting  you  with  the  premises,  we  commit  you  unto 
the  protection  and  direction  of  the  Almighty,  wishing  you  a  com- 
fortable voyage,  a  happy  success,  and  a  safe  return  unto  us  again. 
"  Your  thankful  friends  and  neighbors, 

''  ROGER  WILLIAMS, 

Moderator.'" 

Charter  of  the  Toicn  of  Providence. 

"Whereas,  by  virtue  of  a  free  and  absolute  charter  of  civil  incor- 
poration, granted  to  the  free  inhabitants  of  this  colony  of  Providence, 
by  the  Right  Honorable  Robert,  Earl  of  Warwick,  Governor  in 
Chief,  with  the  rest  of  the  honorable  commoners,  bearing  date  the 
14th  day  of  March,  anno.  1G43,  giving  and  granting  full  powers  and 
authority  unto  the  said  inhabitants  to  govern  themselves  and  such 
others  as  shall  come  among  them,  as  also  to  make,  constitute  and 
ordain  such  laws,  orders  and  constitutions,  and  to  inflict  such  pun- 
ishments and  penalties,  as  is  conformable  to  the  laws  of  England,  so 
near  as  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  place  will  admit,  and 
which  may  best  suit  the  estate  and  condition  thereof,  and  whereas 
the  said  towns  of  Providence,  Portsmouth,  Newport  and  Warwick 
are  far  remote  each  from  other,  whereby  so  often  and  free  intercourse 
of  help  in  deciding  of  difference  and  trymg  of  causes  and  the  like 
cannot  easily  and  at  all  times  be  had  and  procured  of  that  kind  is 
requisite;  therefore,  upon  the  petition  and  humble  request  of  the 
freemen  of  the  town  of  Providence,  exhibited  unto  this  present  ses- 
sion of  General  Assembly,  wherein  they  desire  freedom  and  liberty 
to  incorporate  themselves  into  a  body  politic,  and  we,  the  said  As- 
sembly, having  duly  weighed  and  seriously  considered  the  premises, 
and  being  willing  and  ready  to  provide  for  the  ease  and  liberty  of  the 
people,  have  thought  fit,  and  by  the  authority  aforesaid  and  by  these 
presents,  do  give,  grant  and  confirm  unto  the  free  inhabitants  of  the 
town  of  Providence,  a  free  and  absolute  charter  of  civil  incorporation 
and  government,  to  be  known  by  the  Incorporation  of  Providence 
Plantation,  in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  in  New-England,  together  with 
full  power  and  authority  to  govern  and  rule  themselves,  and  such 
others,  as  shall  hereafter  inhabit  within  any  part  of  the  said  Planta- 
tion, by  such  a  form  of  civil  government,  as  by  voluntary  consent  of 
all,  or  the  greater  part  of  them,  shall  be  found  most  suitable  unto 
their  estate  and  condition,  and  to  that  end  to  make  and  ordain  such 
civil   orders   and   constitutions,  to  inflict  such   punishments   upon 


APPENDIX.  419 

transgressors,  and  for  execution  thereof,  and  of  the  common  statute 
laws  of  the  colony,  agreed  unto,  and  the  penalties,  and  so  many  of 
them  as  are  not  annexed  already  unto  the  colony  Court  of  Trials,  so 
to  place  and  displace  officers  of  justice,  as  they,  or  the  greater  part 
of  them,  shall,  by  one  consent,  agree  unto.  Provided,  nevertheless, 
that  the  said  laws,  constitutions,  and  punishments,  for  the  civil  gov- 
ernment of  the  said  Plantation,  be  conformable  to  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land, so  far  as  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  place  will  admit, 
yet  always  reserving  to  the  aforesaid  General  Assembly,  power  and 
authority  so  to  dispose  the  general  government  of  that  plantantion, 
as  it  stands  in  reference  to  the  rest  of  the  plantation,  as  they  shall 
conceive,  from  time  to  time,  most  conducing  to  the  general  good  of 
the  said  plantation.  And  w^e,  the  said  Assembly,  do  further  author- 
ize the  aforesaid  inhabitants  to  elect  and  engage  such  aforesaid  officers 
upon  the  first  second  day  of  June  annually.  And  moreover,  we 
authorize  the  said  inhabitants,  for  the  better  transacting  of  their  pub- 
lic affairs,  to  make  and  use  a  public  seal,  as  the  known  seal  of  Prov- 
idence Plantation,  in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  in  New-England.  In 
testimony  whereof,  we,  the  said  General  Assembly,  have  hereunto 
set  our  hands  and  seal,  the  i4th  of  March,  Anno  1648. 

"JOHN  WARNER, 

Clerk  of  the  Assembly. 
Portsmouth^ 

'•  The  foregoing  is  as  correct  a  copy  of  the  charter  of  the  town  of 
Providence,  as  could  be  made  from  that  on  parchment  in  the  Town 
Clerk's  office,  taken  this  day,  by  and  with  the  assistance  of  a  copy, 
in  the  hand- writing  of  Joseph  Brown,  son  of  Henry,  and  brother  to 
Richard  Brown,  who  was  proprietors'  clerk.  The  parchment  orig- 
inal not  now  being  in  all  parts  legible,  the  said  copy  I  judge  to  be 
taken  more  than  sixty  years  ago,  and  was  of  great  use  in  decypher- 
ing  that  in  the  office. 

"MOSES  BROWN. 

20«A  mA  mo.  1810." 


Note  G.  page  319. 

Charter  of  Rhode-Island,  granted    by  King  Charles  II.   on  the  8th 
of  July,  1663. 

"  Quintadecima  pars  Patentium  Anno  Regni  Regis  Caroli  Secundi  Quintodecimo. 

"  Charles  the  Second,  by  the  grace  of  God,  &c.,  to  all  to  whom 
these  presents  shall  come,  greeting  :  Whereas  we  have  been  inform- 
ed, by  the  petition  of  our  trusty  and  well-beloved  subjects,  John 
Clarke,  on  the  behalf  of  Benedict  Arnold,  William  Brenton,  Wil- 
liam Coddington,  Nicholas  Easton,  William  Boulston,  John  Porter, 
John  Smith,  Samuel  Gorton,  John  Weekes,  Roger  Williams,  Thomas 
Olney,  Gregory  Dexter,  John  Coggeshall,  Joseph  Clarke,  Randall 
Houlden,  John  Greene,  John  Roome,  Samuel  Wildbore,  William 
Field,  James  Barker,  Richard  Tew,  Thomas  Harris,  and  William 
Dyre.  and  the  rest  of  the  purchasers  and  free  inhabitants  of  our 
island,  called  Rhode-Island,  and  the  rest  of  the  colony  of  Providence 


420  APPENDIX. 

Plantations,  in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  in  New-England,  in  America  : 
That  they,  pursuing  with  peace  and  loyal  minds  their  sober,  serious 
and  religious  intentions,  of  godly  edifying  themselves  and  one 
another  in  the  holy  Christian  faith  and  worship,  as  they  were  per- 
suaded, together  with  the  gaining  over  and  conversion  of  the  poor 
ignorant  Indian  natives,  in  those  parts  of  America,  to  the  sincere 
profession  and  obedience  of  the  same  faith  and  worship,  did  not 
only,  by  the  consent  and  good  encouragement  of  our  royal  progeni- 
tors, transport  themselves  out  of  this  kingdom  of  England,  into 
America;  but  also,  since  their  arrival  there,  after  their  first  settle- 
ment amongst  other  of  our  subjects  in  those  parts,  for  the  avoiding 
of  discord,  and  these  many  evils  which  were  likely  to  ensue  upon 
those,  our  subjects,  not  being  able  to  bear,  in  those  remote  parts, 
their  different  apprehensions  in  religious  concernments :  and  in 
pursuance  of  the  aforesaid  ends,  did  once  again  leave  their  desirable 
stations  and  habitations,  and,  with  excessive  labor  and  travail,  hazard 
and  charge,  did  transplant  themselves  into  the  midst  of  the.  Indian 
natives,  who,  as  we  are  informed,  are  the  most  potent  princes  and 
people  of  all  that  country ;  where,  by  the  good  providences  of  God 
(from  whom  the  plantations  have  taken  their  name)  upon  their  labor 
and  industry,  they  have  not  only  been  preserved  to  admiration,  but 
have  increased  and  prospered,  and  are  seized  and  possessed,  by 
purchase  and  consent  of  said  natives,  to  their  full  content,  of  such 
lands,  islands,  rivers,  harbors,  and  roads,  as  are  very  convenient, 
both  for  plantations  and  also  for  building  of  ships,  supplying  of  pipe- 
staves  and  other  merchandise,  which  lie  very  commodious,  in  many 
respects,  for  commerce,  and  to  accommodate  our  southern  planta- 
tions, and  may  much  advance  the  trade  of  this  our  realm,  and  greatly 
enlarge  the  territories  thereof;  they  having,  by  near  neighborhood 
to,  and  friendly  society  with,  the  great  body  of  Narraganset  Indians, 
given  them  encouragement,  of  their  own  accord,  to  subject  them- 
selves, their  people  and  land  unto  us;  whereby,  as  is  hoped,  there 
may,  in  time,  by  the  blessing  of  God  upon  their  endeavors,  be  laid 
a  sure  foundation  of  happiness  to  all  America  : 

"  And  whereas,  in  their  humble  address,  they  have  freely  de- 
clared, that  it  is  much  on  their  hearts  (if  they  be  permitted)  to  hold 
forth  a  lively  experiment,  that  a  most  flourishing  civil  state  may 
stand,  and  best  be  maintained,  and  that  among  our  English  subjects, 
with  a  full  liberty  in  religious  concernments  ;  and  that  true  piety, 
rightly  grounded  upon  Gospel  principles,  will  give  the  best  and 
greatest  security  to  sovereignty,  and  will  lay  in  the  hearts  of  men 
the  strongest  obligations  to  true  loyalty  : 

"  Now  know  ye,  that  we,  being  willing  to  encourage  the  hopeful 
undertaking  of  our  said  loyal  and  loving  subjects,  and  to  secure 
them  in  the  free  exercise  and  enjoyment  of  all  the  civil  and  reli- 
gious rights  appertaining  to  them,  as  our  loving  subjects,  and  to 
preserve  unto  them  that  liberty  in  the  true  Christian  faitli  and 
worship  of  God,  which  they  have  sought,  with  so  much  travail,  and 
with  peaceable  minds  and  loyal  subjection  to  our  royal  progenitors 
and  ourselves,  to  enjoy ;  and  because  some  of  the  people  and  in- 
habitants of  the  same  colony  cannot,  in  their  private  opinion,  con- 
form to  the  public  exercise  of  religion,  according  to  the  liturgy, 
form  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England,  to  take  or  subscrile 


APPENDIX.  421 

the  oaths  and  articles  made  and  established  in  that  behalf;  and  for 
that  the  same,  by  reason  of  the  remote  distances  of  those  places,  will, 
as  we  hope,  be  no  breach  of  the  unity  and  uniformity  established  in 
this  nation,  have  therefore  thought  fit,  and  do  hereby  publish,  grant, 
ordain,  and  declare,  that  our  royal  will  and  pleasure  is  : 

<'  That  no  person,  within  the  said  colony,  at  any  time  hereafter, 
shall  be  anywise  molested,  punished,  disquieted,  or  called  in  ques- 
tion, for  any  differences  in  opinion  in  matters  of  religion,  who  do  not 
actually  disturb  the  civil  peace  of  our  said  colon}^ ;  but  that  all  and 
every  person  and  persons  ma)',  from  time  to  time,  and  at  all  times 
hereafter,  freely  and  fully  have  and  enjoy  his  own  and  their  judg- 
ments and  consciences,  in  matters  of  religious  concernments,  through- 
out the  tract  of  land  hereafter  mentioned,  they  behaving  themselves 
peaceably  and  quietly,  and  not  using  this  liberty  to  licentiousness 
and  profaneness,  nor  to  the  civil  injury  or  outward  disturbance  of 
others;  any  law,  statute,  or  clause  therein  contained,  or  to  le  con- 
tained, usage,  or  custom  of  this  realm,  to  the  contrary  hereof,  in  any- 
wise notwithstanding. 

''  And  that  they  may  be  in  the  better  capacity  to  defend  them- 
selves, m  their  just  rights  and  liberties,  against  all  the  enemies  of 
the  Christian  faith,  and  others,  in  all  respects,  we  have  further 
thought  fit,  and  at  the  humble  petition  of  the  persons  aforesaid,  are 
graciously  pleased  to  declare, 

'■'  That  they  shall  have  and  enjoy  the  benefit  of  our  late  act  of  in- 
demnity and  free  pardon,  as  the  rest  of  our  subjects  in  our  other 
dominions  and  territories  have,  and  to  create  or  make  them  a  body 
politic  or  corporate,  with  the  powers  and  privileges  hereinafter  men- 
tioned. And,  accordingly,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  of  our 
especial  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and  mere  motion,  w^e  have  or- 
dained, constituted,  and  declared,  and,  by  these  presents,  for  us,  oxiT 
heirs,  and  successors,  do  ordain,  constitute,  and  declare,  that  they, 
the  said  William  Brenton,  William  Coddington,  Nicholas  Easton, 
Benedict  Arnold,  William  Boulston,  John  Porter,  Samuel  Gorton, 
John  Smith,  John  Weekes,  Roger  Williams,  Thomas  Olney,  Greg- 
ory Dexter,  John  Coggeshall,  Joseph  Clarke,  Randall  Houlden,  John 
Greene,  John  Roome,  William  Dyre,  Samuel  Wildbore,  Richard 
Tew,  William  Field,  Thomas  Harris,  James  Barker.  Rains- 
borrow, Williams,  and  John  Nickson,  and  all  such   others  as 

are  now,  or  hereafter  shall  be,  admitted  free  of  the  company  and 
society  of  our  colony  of  Providence  Plantations,  in  the  Narraganset 
Bay,  in  New-England,  shall  be,  from  time  to  time,  and  forever  here- 
after, a  body  corporate  and  politic,  in  fact  and  name,  by  the  name  of 
The  Governor  and  Company  of  the  English  Colonij  of  Rhode-Island 
and  Providence  Plantations,  in  Keic-Engiand,  in  America  ;  and  that  by 
the  same  name  they  and  their  successors  shall  and  may  have  per- 
petual succession,  and  shall  and  may  be  persons  able  and  capable  in 
the  law  to  sue  and  be  sued,  to  plead  and  be  impleaded,  to  answer 
and  to  be  answ'ered  unto,  to  defend  and  to  be  defended,  in  all  and 
singular  suits,  causes,  quarrels,  matters,  actions,  and  things,  of  what 
kinder  nature  soever;  and  also  to  have,  take,  possess,  acquire,  and 
purchase  lands,  tenements,  or  hereditaments,  or  any  goods  or  chat- 
tels, and  the  same  to  lease,  grant,  demise,  alien,  bargain,  sell,  and 

36* 


422  APPENDIX. 

dispose  of,  at  their  own  will  and  pleasure,  as  other  our  liege  people 
of  this  our  realm  of  England,  or  any  corporation  or  body  politic  with- 
in the  same,  may  lawfully  do. 

'•And  further,  that  they,  the  said  Governor  and  company,  and  their 
successors,  shall  and  may,  forever  hereafter,  have  a  common  seal,  to 
serve  and  use  for  all  matters,  causes,  things,  and  affairs  whatsoever, 
of  them  and  their  successors  :  and  the  same  seal  to  alter,  change, 
break,  and  make  new,  from  time  to  time,  at  their  will  and  pleasure, 
as  they  shall  think  fit. 

"  And  further,  we  will  and  ordain,  and,  by  these  presents,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  declare  and  appoint,  that,  for  the  better 
ordering  and  managing  of  the  affairs  and  business  of  the  said  com- 
pany and  their  successors,  there  shall  be  one  Governor,  one  Deputy 
Governor,  and  ten  Assistants,  to  be  from  time  to  time  constituted, 
elected  and  chosen,  out  of  the  freemen  of  the  said  company,  for  the 
time  being,  in  such  manner  and  form  as  is  hereafter  in  these  presents 
expressed;  which  said  officers  shall  apply  themselves  to  take  care 
for  the  best  disposing  and  ordering  of  the  general  business  and  aftairs 
of  and  concerning  the  lands  and  hereditaments  hereinafter  mentioned 
to  be  granted,  and  the  plantation  thereof,  and  the  government  of  the 
people  there. 

*'  And,  for  the  better  execution  of  our  royal  pleasure  herein,  we  do, 
for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  assign,  name,  constitute,  and  ap- 
point the  aforesaid  Benedict  Arnold  to  be  the  first  and  present  Gov- 
ernor of  the  said  company  ,  and  the  said  William  Brenton  to  be  the 
Deputy  Governor;  and  the  said  William  Boulston,  John  Porter, 
Roger  Williams,  Thomas  Olney,  John  Smith,  John  Greene,  John 
Coggeshall,  James  Barker,  William  Field,  and  Joseph  Clarke,  to  be 
the  ten  present  Assistants  of  the  said  company,  to  continue  in  the 
said  several  offices  respectively,  until  the  first  Wednesday  which 
shall  be  in  the  month  of  May  now  next  coming. 

"  And  further,  we  will,  and,  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  do  ordain  and  grant,  that  the  Governor  of  the  said 
company,  for  the  time  being,  or,  in  his  absence,  by  occasion  of  sick- 
ness or  otherwise,  by  his  leave  or  permission,  the  Deputy  Governor, 
for  the  time  being,  shall  and  may,  from  time  to  time,  upon  all  occa- 
sions, give  orders  for  the  assembling  of  the  said  company,  and  call- 
ing them  together  to  consult  and  advise  of  the  business  and  affairs  of 
the  said  company  ;  and  that  forever  heieafter,  twice  in  every  year, 
that  is  to  say,  on  every  first  Wednesday  in  the  month  of  May,  and 
on  every  last  Wednesday  in  October,  or  oftener,  in  case  it  shall  be 
requisite,  the  Assistants,  and  such  of  the  freemen  of  the  said  com- 
pany, not  exceeding  six  persons  for  Newport,  four  persons  for  each 
of  the  respective  towns  of  Providence,  Portsmouth,  and  Warwick, 
and  two.  persons  for  each  other  place,  town,  or  city,  who  shall  be, 
from  time  to  time,  thereunto  elected  or  deputed,  by  the  major  part 
of  the  freemen  of  the  respective  towns  or  places,  for  which  they 
shall  be  so  elected  or  deputed,  shall  have  a  general  meeting  or  as- 
sembly, then  and  there  to  consult,  advise,  and  determine,  in  and 
about  the  affairs  and  business  of  the  said  company  and  plantations. 

"  And  further,  we  do,  of  our  especial  grace,  certain  knowledge, 
and  mere  motion,  give  and  grant  unto  the  said  Governor  and  com- 


APPENDIX.  423 

pany  of  the  English  colony  of  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  Planta- 
tions, in  New-England,  in  America,  and  their  successors,  that  the 
Governor,  or,  in  his  absence,  or  by  his  permission,  the  Deputy  Gov- 
ernor of  tiie  said  company,  for  the  time  being,  the  Assistants  and 
such  of  the  freemen  of  the  said  company,  as  shall  be  so  aforesaid 
elected  or  deputed,  or  so  many  of  them  as  shall  be  present  at  such 
meeting  or  assembly,  as  aforesaid,  shall  be  called  the  General  As- 
sembly :  and  that  they,  or  the  greatest  part  of  them  then  present, 
(whereof  the  Governor,  or  Deputy  Governor,  and  six  of  the  Assist- 
ants at  least,  to  be  seven.)  shall  have,  and  have  hereby  given  and 
granted  unto  them,  full  power  and  authority,  from  time  to  time,  and 
at  all  times  hereafter,  to  appoint,  alter,  and  change  such  days,  times, 
and  places  of  meeting  and  general  assembly,  as  they  shall  think  fit; 
and  to  choose,  nominate,  and  appoint  such  and  so  many  persons  as 
they  shall  think  fit,  and  shall  be  willing  to  accept  the  same,  to  be 
free  of  the  said  company  and  body  politic,  and  them  into  the  same 
to  admit  3  and  to  elect  and  constitute  such  ofiices  and  oflacers,  and 
to  grant  such  needful  commissions  as  they  shall  think  fit  and  requi- 
site, for  ordering,  managing  and  despatching  of  the  affairs  of  the 
said  Governor  and  company  and  their  successors  ;  and  from  time  to 
time  to  make,  ordain,  constitute,  and  repeal,  such  laws,  statutes,  or- 
ders and  ordinances,  forms  and  ceremonies  of  government  and  ma- 
gistracy, as  to  them  shall  seem  meet,  for  the  good  and  welfare  of 
the  said  company,  and  for  the  government  and  ordering  of  the  lands 
and  hereditaments  herein  after  mentioned  to  be  granted,  and  of  the 
people  that  do,  or  at  any  time  hereafter  shall,  inhabit  or  be  within 
the  same  ;  so  as  such  laws,  ordinances,  and  constitutions,  so  made, 
be  not  contrary  and  repugnant  unto,  but  (as  near  as  may  be)  agree- 
able to  the  laws  of  this  our  realm  of  England,  considering  the  na- 
ture and  constitution  of  the  place  and  people  there  ;  and  also  to  ap- 
point, order,  and  direct,  erect  and  settle  such  places  and  courts  of 
jurisdiction,  for  hearing  and  determining  of  all  actions,  cases,  mat- 
ters, and  things,  happening  within  the  said  colony  and  plantation, 
which  shall  be  in  dispute  and  depending  there,  as  they  shall  think 
fit ;  and  also  to  distinguish  and  set  forth  the  several  names  and  titles, 
duties,  powers,  and  limits,  of  each  court,  office,  and  officer,  superior 
and  inferior ;  and  also  to  contrive  and  appoint  such  forms  of  oaths 
and  attestations,  not  repugnant,  but  (as  near  as  may  be)  agreeable, 
as  aforesaid,  to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  our  realm,  as  are  con- 
venient and  requisite,  with  respect  to  the  due  administration  of 
justice,  and  due  execution  and  discharge  of  all  offices  and  places  of 
trust,  by  the  persons  that  shall  be  therein  concerned ;  and  also  to 
regulate  and  order  the  way  and  manner  of  all  elections  to  offices 
and  places  of  trust,  and  to  prescribe,  limit,  and  distinguish  the  num- 
ber and  bounds  of  all  places,  towns,  and  cities,  within  the  limits  and 
bounds  hereinafter  mentioned,  and  not  herein  particularly  named, 
that  have  or  shall  have  the  power  of  electing  and  sending  of  free- 
men to  the  said  General  Assembly  ;  and  also  to  order,  direct,  and 
authorize  the  imposing  of  lawful  and  reasonable  fines,  mulcts,  im- 
prisonment, and  executing  other  punishments,  pecuniary  and  cor- 
poral, upon  offenders  and'delinquents,  according  to  the  course  of 
other  corporations,  within  this  our  kingdom  of  England;  and  again, 
to  alter,  revoke,  annul,  or  pardon,  under  their  common  seal,  or  oth- 


424  APPENDIX. 

erwise,  such  fines,  mulcts,  imprisonments,  sentences,  judgments, 
and  condemnations,  as  shall  be  thought  fit;  and  to  direct,  rule,  or- 
der, and  dispose  of  all  other  matters  and  things,  and  particularly 
that  which  relates  to  the  making  of  purchases  of  the  native  Indians, 
as  to  them  shall  seem  meet ;  Avhereby  our  said  people  and  inhabit- 
ants in  the  said  plantations  may  be  so  religiously,  peaceably,  and 
civily  governed,  as  that,  by  their  good  life  and  orderly  conversation, 
they  may  Vv'in  and  invite  the  native  Indians  of  the  country  to  the 
knowledge  and  obedience  of  the  only  true  God  and  Saviour  of  man- 
kind ;  willing,  commanding,  and  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  ordaining  and  appointing,  that  all  such  laws, 
statutes,  orders  and  ordinances,  instructions,  impositions,  and  di- 
rections, as  shall  be  so  made  by  the  Governor,  Deputy,  Assistants, 
and  freemen,  or  such  number  of  them  as  aforesaid,  and  published  in 
writing,  under  their  common  seal,  shall  be  carefully  and  duly  ob- 
served, kept,  performed,  and  put  in  execution,  according  to  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  the  same.  And  these  our  letters  patent,  or 
the  duplicate  of  exemplification  tliereof,  shall  be,  to  all  and  every 
such  ofiicers,  superior  or  inferior,  from  time  to  time,  for  the  putting 
of  the  same  orders,  laws,  statutes,  ordinances,  instructions,  and  di- 
rections, in  due  execution,  against  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  a 
sufficient  warrant  and  discharge. 

"  And  further,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  wo  do  hereby,  for  us, 
our  heirs  and  successors,  establish  and  ordain,  that,  yearly,  once  in 
the  year,  forever  hereafter,  namely,  the  aforesaid  Wednesday  in 
May,  and  at  the  town  of  Newport,  or  elsewhere,  if  urgent  occasion 
do  require,  the  Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and  Assistants  of  the 
said  company,  and  other  officers  of  the  said  company,  or  such  of 
them  as  the  General  Assembly  shall  think  fit,  shall  be  in  the  said 
General  Court  or  Assembly,  to  be  held  from  that  day  or  time,  newly 
chosen  for  the  yea.T  ensuing,  by  the  greater  part  of  the  said  company 
for  the  time  being,  as  shall  be  then  there  present.  And  if  it  shall 
happen  that  the  present  Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and  Assist- 
ants, by  these  presents  appointed,  or  any  sueh  as  shall  hereafter  be 
newly  chosen  into  their  respective  rooms,  or  any  of  them,  or  any 
other  of  the  officers  of  the  said  company,  shall  die,  or  be  removed 
from  his  or  their  several  offices  or  places,  before  the  said  general 
day  of  election,  (whom  we  do  hereby  declare,  for  a  misdemeanor  or 
default,  to  be  removable  by  the  Governor,  Assistants  and  company, 
or  such  greater  part  of  them,  in  any  of  the  said  public  Courts  to  be 
assembled  as  aforesaid.)  that  then,  and  in  every  such  case,  it  shall 
and  may  be  lawful  to  and  for  the  said  Governor,  Deputy  Governor, 
Assistants,  and  Company  aforesaid,  or  such  greater  part  of  them,  so 
to  be  assembled,  as  is  aforesaid,  in  any  of  their  assemblies,  to  pro- 
ceed to  a  new  election  of  one  or  more  of  their  company,  in  the  room 
or  place,  rooms  or  places,  of  such  officer  or  officers,  so  dying,  or  re- 
moved, according  to  their  directions.  And  immediately  upon  and 
after  such  election  or  elections  made  of  such  Governor,  Deputy 
Governor,  Assistant,  or  Assistants,  or  any  other  officer  of  the  said 
company,  in  manner  and  form  aforesaid,  the  authority,  office  and 
power,  before  given  to  the  former  Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and 
other  officer  or  officers  so  removed,  in  whose  stead  and  place  new 
shall  be  chosen,  shall,  as  to  him  and  them,  and  every  of  them  re- 


APPENDIX.  425 

specti%''ely,  cease  and  determine  :  Provided,  always,  and  our  will 
and  pleasure  is,  that  as  well  such  as  are  by  these  presents  appointed 
to  be  the  present  Governor,  Deputy  Governor,  and  Assistants  of 
the  said  company,  as  tliose  which  shall  succeed  them,  and  all  other 
officers  to  be  appointed  and  chosen  as  aforesaid,  shall,  before  the 
undertaking  the  execution  of  the  said  offices  and  places  respectively, 
give  their  solemn  engagement,  by  oath  or  otherwise,  for  the  due 
and  faithful  performance  of  their  duties,  in  their  several  offices  and 
places,  before  such  person  or  persons  as  are  by  these  presents  here- 
after appointed  to  take  and  receive  the  same  :  that  is  to  say,  the 
said  Benedict  Arnold,  who  is  herein  before  nominated  and  appointed 
the  present  Governor  of  the  said  Company,  shall  give  the  aforesaid 
engagement  before  William  Brenton,  or  any  two  of  the  said  Assist- 
ants of  the  said  Company,  unto  whom  we  do,  by  these  presents,  give 
full  power  and  authority  to  require  and  receive  the  same  :  and  the 
said  William  Brenton,  who  is  hereby  before  nominated  and  appoint- 
ed the  present  Deputy  Governor  of  the  said  Company,  shall  give 
the  aforesaid  engagement  before  the  said  Benedict  Arnold,  or  any 
two  of  the  Assistants  of  the  said  Company,  unto  whom  we  do,  by 
these  presents,  give  full  power  and  authority  to  require  and  receive 
the  same  :  and  the  said  William  Boulston,  John  Porter,  Roger  Wil- 
liams, Thomas  Olney,  John  Smith,  John  Greene,  John  Coggeshall, 
James  Barker,  William  Field,  and  Joseph  Clarke,  who  are  herein 
before  nominated  and  appointed  the  present  Assistants  of  the  Com- 
pany, shall  give  the  said  engagement  to  their  offices  and  places  re- 
spectively belonging,  before  the  said  Benedict  Arnold  and  William 
Brenton,  or  one  of  them,  to  whom  respectively  we  do  hereby  give 
full  power  and  authority  to  require,  administer,  or  receive  the  same  : 
and  further,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  that  all  and  every  other  future 
Governor,  or  Deputy  Governor,  to  be  elected  and  chosen  by  virtue 
of  these  presents,  shall  give  the  said  engagement  before  two  or  more 
of  the  said  Assistants  of  the  said  Company,  for  the  time  being,  unto 
whom  we  do,  by  these  presents,  give  full  power  and  authority  to 
require,  administer,  or  receive  the  same  :  and  the  said  Assistants, 
and  every  of  them,  and  all  and  every  other  officer  or  officers,  to  be 
hereafter  elected  and  chosen  by  virtue  of  these  presents,  from  time 
to  time,  shall  give  the  like  engagements  to  their  offices  and  places 
respectively  belonging,  before  the  Governor,  or  Deputy  Governor, 
for  the  time  being,  unto  which  said  Governor,  or  Deputy  Governor, 
we  do,  by  these  presents,  give  full  power  and  authority  to  require, 
administer,  or  receive  the  same  accordingly. 

'•  And  we  do  likewise,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  give  and 
grant  unto  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  and  their  successors, 
by  these  presents,  that  for  the  more  peaceably  and  orderly  govern- 
ment of  the  said  plantations,  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  for  the  Gov- 
ernor, Deputy  Governor,  Assistants,  and  all  other  officers  and  min- 
isters of  the  said  Company,  in  the  administration  of  justice,  and  ex- 
ercise of  government,  and  the  said  plantations,  to  use,  exercise,  and 
put  in  execution,  such  methods,  orders,  rules,  and  directions,  (not 
being  contrary  and  repugnant  to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  our 
realm,)  as  have  been  heretofore  given,  used,  and  accustomed,  in 
such  cases  respectively,  to  be  put  in  practice,  until  at  the  next,  or 
some  other  General  Assembly,  especial  provision  shall  be  made  in 
the  cases 'aforesaid. 


426  APPENDIX. 

"  And  we  do  further,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  give  and 
grant  unto  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  and  their  successors, 
by  these  presents,  that  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  to  and  for  the  said 
Governor,  or,  in  his  absence,  the  Deputy  Governor,  and  major  part 
of  the  said  Assistants  for  the  time  being,  at  any  time,  when  the  said 
General  Assembly  is  not  sitting,  to  nominate,  appoint  and  consti- 
tute such  and  so  many  commanders,  governors,  and  military  officers, 
as  to  them  shall  seem  requisite,  for  the  leading,  conducting,  and 
training  up  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  plantations  in  martial  atfairs, 
and  for  the  defence  and  safeguard  of  the  said  plantations ;  that  it 
shall  and  may  be  lawful  to  and  for  all  and  every  such  commander, 
governor,  and  military  officer,  that  shall  be  so  as  aforesaid,  or  by 
the  Governor,  or,  in  his  absence,  the  Deputy  Governor,  and  six  of 
the  Assistants,  and  major  part  of  the  freemen  of  said  Company, 
present  at  any  general  assemblies,  nominated,  appointed,  and  con- 
stituted, according  to  the  tenor  of  his  and  their  respective  commis- 
sions and  directions,  to  assemble,  exercise  in  arms,  marshal,  array, 
and  put  in  warlike  posture,  the  inhabitants  of  said  colony,  for  their 
especial  defence  and  safety ;  and  to  lead  and  conduct  the  said  in- 
habitants, and  to  encounter,  repulse,  and  resist,  by  force  of  arms, 
as  well  by  sea  as  by  land,  to  kill,  slay,  and  destroy,  by  all  fitting 
ways,  enterprises,  and  means  whatsoever,  all  and  every  such  person 
or  persons  as  shall,  at  any  time  hereafter,  attempt  or  enterprise  the 
destruction,  invasion,  detriment,  or  annoyance  of  the  said  inhabit- 
ants or  plantations  ;  and  to  use  and  exercise  the  law  martial,  in  such 
cases  only  as  occasion  shall  necessarily  require ;  and  to  take  and 
surprise,  by  all  ways  and  means  whatsoever,  all  and  every  such 
person  or  persons,  with  their  ship,  or  ships,  armor,  ammunition,  or 
other  goods  of  such  persons,  as  shall,  in  hostile  manner,  invade,  or 
attempt  the  defeating  of  the  said  plantation,  or  the  hurt  of  the  said 
company  and  inhabitants;  and,  upon  just  cause,  to  invade  and  de- 
stroy the  native  Indians,  or  other  enemies  of  the  said  colony. 

"  Nevertheless,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby  declare 
to  the  rest  of  our  colonies  in  New-England,  that  it  shall  not  be  law- 
ful for  this  our  said  colony  of  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  Planta- 
tions, in  America,  in  New-England,  to  invade  the  natives  inhabiting 
within  the  bounds  and  limits  of  the  said  colonies,  without  the  knowl- 
edge and  consent  of  the  said  other  colonies.  And  it  is  hereby  de- 
clared, that  it  shall  not  be  lawful  to  or  for  the  rest  of  the  colonies  to 
invade  or  molest  the  native  Indians,  or  any  other  inhabitants,  inhab- 
iting within  the  bounds  or  limits  hereafter  mentioned,  (they  having 
subjected  themselves  unto  us.  and  being  by  us  taken  into  our  special 
protection,)  without  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  our  colony  of  Rhode-Island  and  Providence  Plantations. 

"  Also,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby  declare  unto  all 
Christian  kings,  princes,  and  states,  that,  if  any  person,  who  shall 
hereafter  be  of  the  said  Company  or  Plantation,  or  any  other,  by 
appointment  of  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  for  the  time  being, 
shall,  at  any  time  or  times  hereafter,  rob  or  spoil,  by  sea  or  land,  or 
do  any  hurt,  or  unlawful  hostility,  to  any  of  the  subjects  of  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  or  to  any  of  the  subjects  of  any  prince  or  state, 
being  then  in  league  with  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  upon  com- 


APPENDIX.  427 

plaint  of  such  injury  done  to  any  such  prince  or  state,  or  their  sub- 
jects, we,  our  heirs  and  successors,  will  make  open  proclamation, 
within  any  part  of  our  realm  of  England,  fit  for  that  purpose,  that 
the  person  or  persons  committing  any  such  robbery  or  spoil,  shall, 
within  the  time  limited  by  such  proclamation,  make  full  restitution 
or  satisfaction  of  all  such  injuries  done  or  committed,  so  as  the  said 
prince,  or  others,  so  complaining,  may  be  fully  satisfied  and  con- 
tented ;  and  if  the  said  person  or  persons,  who  shall  commit  any 
such  robbery  or  spoil,  shall  not  make  satisfaction  accordingly, 
within  such  time  so  to  be  limited,  that  then  we,  our  heirs  and  suc- 
cessors, will  put  such  person  or  persons  out  of  our  allegiance  and 
protection  ;  and,  that  then  it  shall  and  maybe  lawful  and  free  for  all 
princes  or  others  to  prosecute  with  hostility  such  offenders,  and 
every  of  them,  their  and  every  of  their  procurers,  aiders,  abettors, 
and  counsellors,  in  that  behalf. 

"  Provided,  also,  and  our  express  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do, 
by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  ordain  and  ap- 
point, that  these  presents  shall  not  in  any  manner  hinder  any  of  our 
loving  subjects  whatsoever  from  using  and  exercising  the  trade  of 
fishing  upon  the  coast  of  New-England,  in  America;  but  that  they, 
and  every  or  any  of  them,  shall  have  full  and  free  power  and  liberty 
to  continue  and  use  the  trade  of  fishing  upon  the  said  coast ;  in  any 
of  the  seas  thereunto  adjoining,  or  any  arms  of  the  sea,  or  salt  water 
rivers  and  creeks,  where  they  have  been  accustomed  to  fish  ;  and  to 
build  and  set  upon  the  waste  land,  belonging  to  the  said  colony  and 
plantations,  such  wharves,  stages,  and  work-houses,  as  shall  be 
necessary  for  the  salting,  drying,  and  keeping  of  their  fish,  to  be 
taken  or  gotten  upon  that  coast. 

"  And  further,  for  the  encouragement  of  the  inhabitants  of  our  said 
colony  of  Providence  Plantations  to  set  upon  the  business  of  taking 
whales,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  them,  or  any  of  them,  having  struck  a 
whale,  dubertus,  or  other  great  fish,  it  or  them  to  pursue  unto  that 
coast,  or  into  any  bay,  river,  cove,  creek,  or  shore,  belonging  thereto, 
and  it  or  them  upon  the  said  coast,  or  in  the  said  bay,  river,  cove, 
creek,  or  shore,  belonging  thereto,  to  kill  and  order  for  the  best  ad- 
vantage, without  molestation,  they  making  no  wilful  waste  or  spoil; 
any  thing  in  these  presents  contained,  or  any  other  matter  or  thing, 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

"  And  further,  also,  we  are  graciously  pleased,  and  do  hereby  de- 
clare, that  if  any  of  the  inhabitants  of  our  said  colony  do  set  upon 
the  planting  of  vineyards,  (the  soil  and  climate  both  seeming  natu- 
rally to  concur  to  the  production  of  vines,)  or  be  industrious  in  the 
discovery  of  fishing  banks,  in  or  about  the  said  colony,  we  will,  from 
time  to  time,  give  and  allow  all  due  and  fitting  encouragement 
therein,  as  to  others  in  cases  of  a  like  nature. 

'•And  further,  of  our  more  ample  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and 
mere  motion,  v.^e  have  given  and  granted,  and  by  these  presents,  for 
us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  give  and  grant  unto  the  said  Gover- 
nor and  Company  of  the  English  colony  of  Rhode-Island  and  Provi- 
dence Plantations,  in  the  Narraganset  Bay,  in  New-England,  in 
America,  and  to  every  inhabitant  there,  and  to  every  person  and 
persons  trading  tliither,  and  to  every  such  person  or  persons  as  are 


428  APPENDIX. 

or  shall  be  free  of  the  said  colony,  full  power  and  authority,  from 
time  to  time,  and  at  all  times  hereafter,  to  take,  ship,  transport,  and 
carry  away,  out  of  any  of  our  realms  and  dominions,  for  and  towards 
the  plantation  and  defence  of  the  said  colony,  such  and  so  many  of 
our  loving  subjects  and  strangers,  as  shall  or  will,  willingly,  accom- 
pany them  in  and  to  their  said  colony  and  plantations,  except  such 
person  or  persons  as  are  or  shall  be  therein  restrained  by  us,  oar 
heirs  and  successors,  or  any  law  or  statute  of  this  realm  :  and  also  to 
ship  and  transport  all  and  all  manner  of  goods,  chattels,  merchan- 
dise, and  other  things  whatsoever,  that  are  or  shall  be  useful,  or 
necessary  for  the  said  plantations,  and  defence  thereof,  and  usually 
transported,  and  not  prohibited  by  any  law  or  statute  of  this  our 
realm  ;  yielding  and  paying  unto  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  such 
duties,  customs,  and  subsidies,  as  are  or  ought  to  be  paid  or  payable 
for  the  same. 

"  And  further,  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do,  for  us,  our  heirs 
and  successors,  ordain,  declare,  and  grant,  unto  the  said  Governor 
and  Company,  and  their  successors,  that  all  and  cverj^  the  subjects 
of  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  which  are  already  planted  and  settled 
within  our  said  colony  of  Providence  Plantations,  or  which  shall 
hereafter  go  to  inhabit  within  the  said  colony,  and  all  and  every  of 
their  children  wliich  have  been  born  there,  or  which  shall  happen 
hereafter  to  be  born  there,  or  on  the  sea,  going  thither,  or  returning 
from  thence,  shall  have  and  enjoy  all  liberties  and  immunities  of 
free  and  natural  subjects,  within  any  of  the  dominions  of  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  to  all  intents,  constructions  and  purposes 
whatsoever,  as  if  they  and  every  of  them  were  born  within  the 
realm  of  England. 

"And  further,  know  ye,  that  we,  of  our  more  abundant  grace, 
certain  knowledge,  and  mere  motion,  have  given,  granted,  and  con- 
firmed, and,  by  these  presents,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  do  give, 
grant,  and  confirm  unto  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  and  their 
successors,  all  that  part  of  our  dominions,  in  New-England,  in 
America,  containing  the  Nahantick  and  Nanhyganset  alias  Narra- 
ganset  Bay,  and  countries  and  parts  adjacent,  bounded  on  the  west 
or  westerly,  to  the  middle  or  channel  of  a  river  there,  commonly 
called  and  known  by  the  name  of  Pawcatuck  alias  Pawcawtuck 
river  ;  and  so,  along  the  said  river,  as  the  greater  or  middle  stream 
thereof  stretches  or  lies  up  into  the  north  country  northward  unto 
the  head  thereof,  and  from  thence,  by  a  straight  line  drawn  due 
north,  until  it  meet  with  the  south  line  of  the  Massachusetts  colony ; 
and  on  the  north  or  northerly  by  the  aforesaid  south  or  southerly 
line  of  the  Massachusetts  colony  or  plantation,  and  extending  to- 
wards the  east  or  eastwardly  three  English  miles,  to  the  east  and 
northeast  of  the  most  eastern  and  north-eastern  parts  of  the  afore- 
said Narraganset  Bay,  as  the  said  Bay  lieth  or  extendeth  itself  from 
the  ocean,  on  the  south  or  southwardly,  unto  the  mouth  of  the  river 
which  runneth  towards  the  town  of  Providence  ;  and  from  thence, 
along  the  eastwardly  side  or  bank  of  the  said  river,  (higher  called 
by  the  name  of  Seacunck)  up  to  the  falls  called  Patucket  Falls,  be- 
ing the  most  westwardly  line  of  Plymouth  colony  ;  and  so,  from  the 
said  falls,  in  a  straight  line,  due  north,  until  it  meet  with  the  afore- 


APPENDIX.  429 

said  line  of  the  Massachusetts  colony,  and  bounded  on  the  south  by 
the  ocean,  and  in  particular  the  lands  belonging  to  the  town  of 
Providence,  Pawtuxet,  Warwick,  Misquammacock,  alias  Pawcatuck, 
and  the  rest  upon  the  main  land,  in  the  tract  aforesaid,  together 
with  Rhode-Island,  Block-Island,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  islands  and 
banks  in  Narraganset  ba}^,  and  bordering  upon  the  coast  of  the  tract 
aforesaid.  (Fisher's  Island  only  excepted)  together  with  all  firm 
lands,  soils,  grounds,  havens,  ports,  rivers,  waters,  fishings,  mines 
royal,  and  all  other  mines,  minerals,  precious  stones,  quarries, 
woods,  wood-grounds,  rocks,  slates,  and  all  and  singular  other  com- 
modities, jurisdictions,  royalties,  privileges,  franchises,  pre-eminen- 
ces, and  hereditaments  whatsoever,  within  the  said  tract,  bounds, 
lands,  and  islands  aforesaid,  to  them  or  any  of  them  belonging,  or 
in  any  wise  appertaining  ;  to  have  and  to  hold  the  same,  unto  the 
said  Governor  and  company,  and  their  successors  forever,  upon 
trust,  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  themselves  and  their  associates,  free- 
men of  the  said  colony,  their  heirs  and  assigns; — to  be  holden  of 
us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  as  of  the  manor  of  East  Greenwich,  in 
our  county  of  Kent,  in  free  and  common  soccage,  and  not  in  capite, 
nor  by  knight's  service  ;  yielding  and  paying  therefor,  to  us,  our 
heirs  and  successors,  only  the  fifth  part  of  all  the  ore  of  gold  and 
silver  which,  from  time  to  time,  and  at  all  times  hereafter,  shall  be 
there  gotten,  had,  or  obtained,  in  lieu  and  satisfaction  of  all  services, 
duties,  fines,  forfeitures,  made  or  to  be  made,  claims,  or  demands 
w^hatsoever,  to  be  to  us,  our  heirs,  or  successors,  therefore  or  there- 
about rendered,  made,  or  paid  ;  any  grant  or  clause  in  a  late  grant 
to  the  Governor  and  Company  of  Connecticut  colony,  in  America, 
to  the  contrary  thereof  in  any  wise  notwithstanding ;  the  aforesaid 
Pawcatuck  river  having  been  yielded,  after  much  debate,  for  the 
fixed  and  certain  bounds  between  these  our  said  colonies,  by  the 
agents  thereof,  vfho  have  also  agreed,  that  the  said  Pawcatuck  river 
shall  also  be  called  alias  Narogancett  or  Narraganset  river,  and  to 
prevent  future  disputes,  that  otherwise  might  arise  thereby,  forever 
hereafter  shall  be  construed,  deemed,  and  taken  to  be  the  Narragan- 
set river,  in  our  late  grant  to  Connecticut  colony,  mentioned  as  the 
easterly  bounds  of  that  colon}^. 

"  And  further,  our  Vvdll  and  pleasure  is,  that,  in  all  matters  of  pub- 
lic controversies,  which  may  fall  out  between  our  colony  of  Provi- 
dence Plantations,  to  make  their  appeal  therein  to  us,  our  heirs  and 
successors,  for  redress  in  such  cases,  within  this  our  realm  of  Eng- 
land;  and  that  it  shall  be  lawful  to  and  for  the  inhabitants  of  the 
said  colony  of  Providence  Plantations,  v/ithout  let  or  molestation,  to 
pass  and  repass  with  freedom,  into  and  through  the  rest  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonies,  upon  their  lawful  and  civil  occasions,  and  to  converse 
and  hold  commerce  and  trade  with  such  of  the  inhabitants  of  our 
other  English  colonies,  as  shall  be  wilhng  to  admit  them  thereunto, 
they  behaving  themselves  peaceably  among  them,  any  act,  clause,  or 
sentence,  in  any  of  the  said  colonies  provided,  or  that  shall  be  pro- 
vided, to  the  contrary  in  any  wise  notwithstanding. 

'•  And  lastly,  we  do,  for  us,  our  heirs  and  successors,  ordain  and 
grant  unto  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  and  their  successors, 
by  these  presents,  that  these  our  letters  patent  shall  be  firm,  good, 
effectual,  and  available,  in  all  things  in  the  lav/,  to  all  intents,  con- 

37 


430  APPENDIX. 

structions,  and  purposes  whatsoever,  according  to  our  true  intent 
and  meaning  herein  before  declared,  and  shall  be  construed,  reputed, 
and  adjudged,  in  all  cases  most  favorable  on  the  behalf,  and  for  the 
best  benefit  and  behoof  of  the  said  Governor  and  Company,  and  their 
successors,  although  express  mention,  &c.  In  witness,  &c. 
"  Witness,  &c.     Per  Ipsum  Regem." 


Note  H.  page  355. 

The  following  letter  from  that  indefatigable  antiquary,  the  late 
Theodore  Foster,  Esq.  contains  some  interesting  information,  con- 
cerning the  residence  of  Roger  Williams,  the  time  of  his  death,  and 
the  place  where  he  was  buried.  It  is  copied  from  the  Rhode- 
Island  American,  of  July  16,  1819  : 

"  To  Mr.  Wilhams  Thayer,  Jr. 

"  Foster,  R.  I.  May  21,  1819. 
"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  have,  this  afternoon,  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  your  polite 
letter  of  yesterday,  requesting  information  relative  to  your  worthy 
and  distinguished  ancestor,  Mr.  Roger  Williams,  the  Founder  of  our 
State,  and  for  some  years  its  Chief  Magistrate  and  patron.  He  was 
chosen  President,  Sept.  13,  1G54,  after  his  return  from  his  second 
successful  agency  with  the  Long  Parliament  in  England.  In  that 
office  he  was  continued,  by  repeated  elections,  until  May  19,  1657, 
when  he  was  succeeded  in  it  by  Benedict  Arnold. 

"  In  answer  to  your  queries,  "  At  what  time  did  Roger  Williams 
depart  this  life  .''  Where  did  he  dwell  in  Providence  .''  and  where  was 
he  buried.''"  lean  only  say,  that  I  never  met  with  any  record, 
printed  or  manuscript,  which  I  thought  more  correct,  as  to  the  time 
of  his  death,  than  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Backus,  in  his  History 
of  the  Baptists,  vol.  i.  p.  515.  Governor  Hutchinson,  in  his  History 
of  Massachusetts,  vol.  i.  p.  43,  says,  that  he  died  in  the  year  1G82, 
forty-eight  years  after  his  banishment.  Now,  adding  forty-eight 
years  to  the  year  of  his  removal  from  Salem  to  Providence,  which, 
undoubtedly,  was  in  163G,  it  makes  the  year  1C84  as  the  year  of  his 
death,  though  Governor  Hutchinson,  by  mistake,  says  it  was  in  1682. 
From  Mr.  Williams'  writings,  it  appears  that  he  was  born  in  1599 ; 
and,  as  he  died  in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  it  will  make  the 
year  1683,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Backus,  that  in  which  his  death  hap- 
pened. 

"  It  appears  of  record,  that  on  the  16th  day  of  January,  1683,  Mr. 
Williams,  with  others,  signed  a  settlement  of  a  controversy  which 
had  long  existed  between  some  of  the  people  of  Providence  and 
some  of  those  of  Pawtuxet,  relative  to  the  Pawtuxet  purchase ;  and 
that,  on  the  10th  day  of  May  following,  John  Thornton,  in  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Hubbard,  mentioned  his  death.  So  he  must  have  died  be- 
tween January  16  and  May  10,  1683. 

'^  The  freemen  of  Providence,  in  town  meeting,  July  15,  1771,  ap- 
pointed a  committee,  viz.  Stephen  Hopkins,  Amos  Atwell,  and  Da- 


APPENDIX.  431 

rius  Sessions,  Esqrs.  to  draft  an  inscription  for  a  monument,  which 
it  was  then  intended  to  erect  to  his  memory.  In  their  vote  on  that 
occasion,  Mr.  Wilhams  was  called  "  the  Founder  of  the  Town  and 
Colony.''  The  committee  did  nothing,  and  the  business  has  slept 
from  that  time.  In  the  summer  of  that  year,  (forty-eight  years  ago) 
when  much  was  said  respecting  a  monument  for  him,  though  noth- 
ing could  be  agreed  on,  his  grave  was  shown  to  me,  near  the  east 
end  of  the  house  lot  now  owned  by  Mr.  Dorr.  The  foot  grave-stone 
was  then  gone,  and  the  top  of  the  other  broken  off,  so  that  only  the 
lower  part  appeared,  without  any  inscription.  There  were  several 
other  grave-stones  near  his,  in  memory  of  some  of  the  Ashton  fam- 
ily, who  were  connected  with  Mr.  Williams,  on  which  the  inscrip- 
tions were  entire.  Thinking  it  a  duty  to  preserve  some  knowledge 
of  the  place,  where  was  deposited  the  dust  of  the  founder  of  our 
State,  I  have  repeatedly,  of  late  years,  sought  for  those  monuments, 
without  being  able  to  find  any  traces  of  them ;  though  I  think  I  can, 
within  a  rod  or  two,  show  where  they  were  placed,  so  that,  on  dig- 
ging the  ground,  the  graves  may,  perhaps,  be  discovered. 

'•'  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Mr.  Williams  lived,  the  latter  part  of 
his  life,  upon  the  estate  whereon  he  was  buried,  which  was  called 
the  Crawford  estate,  after  the  connection  of  the  Crawford  and  Fen- 
ner  families,  by  the  marriage  of  Gideon  Crawford  with  Freelove 
Fenner,  daughter  6f  Arthur  Fenner,  April  13,  1687 ;  which  Arthur 
Fenner,  July  31,  1688,  gave  to  his  three  daughters,  Freelove,  Beth- 
iah  and  Phebe,  thirty-one  acres  of  land,  '■  in  Providence  Neck,"  all 
which  became  the  property  of  Mr.  Crawford,  who  married  Freelove 
Fenner,  and  I  believe  was  exchanged  or  negotiated  for  Mr,  Williams' 
estate,  near  the  spring.* 

As  Mr.  Williams'  grave  and  others  before  mentioned  were  on  that 
estate,  I  apphed,  on  the  12th  of  May,  1813,  to  Mrs.  Mary  Tripe,  a 
descendant  of  the  said  Gideon  Crawford,  then  in  the  seventy-second 
year  of  her  age,  for  information  respecting  them.  She  was  a  woman 
of  intelligence,  good  sense  and  information,  and  careful  of  what  she 

*"Mr.  Williams  sold  from  his  estate  a  lot,  forty-eight  feet  wide  on  the  street,  to  Mr. 
Gabriel  Bernon,  a  very  respectable  French  gentleman,  of  great  property,  and  sincere 
religion,  who  came  from  Rochelle,  France,  where  he  had  suffered  much,  and  had  been 
imprisoned  two  yeais,  on  account  of  his  religion,  whieh  led  Mr.  Williams  greatly  to 
esteem  and  respect  him.  He  was  horn  at  Rochelle,  April  6,  1644  •,  lived  ten  years 
at  Newport  and  Narraganset,  and  died  in  Providence,  February  1,1736,  in  the  ninety- 
second  year  of  his  age.  He  had  ten  children  by  his  first  wife,  eight  of  whom,  with 
herself,  came  with  him  to  this  State,  He  had  four  children  by  his  second  wife, Mary 
Harris.  He  was  buried  under  the  old  Episcopal  church,  and  was  the  ancestor  of 
many  respectable  families,  in  various  parts  of  the  State,  in  which  are  great  numbers 
of  his  posterity,  connected  with  the  names  of  Coddington,  Helme,  Whipple,  Crawford, 
Jeiickes,  Allen,  Toqrtellot,  &.C. 

"  The  lot  thus  sold  to  Mr.  Beruon  contained  the  famous  spring  where  Mr,  Williami 
landed,  when  he  came  to  Providence  in  a  canoe,  with  Thomas  Angell,  in  1636.  Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson  says:  "The  inhabitants  have  a  veneration  for  a  spring,  which  runs 
fiom  the  hill  into  the  river,  above  the  great  bridge.  The  sight  of  this  spring  caused 
him  to  stop  his  canoe,  and  land  there."     Mass,  His,  vol,   ii,  p.  41. 

"  This  is  the  same  lot  where  I\Ir,  Nehemiah  Dodge  is  now  building  a  large  brick 
house,  near  the  stone  Episcopal  church,  a  few  feet  eastward  of  the  spring,  of  which 
there  is  now  no  appearance,  otherwise  than  at  the  bottom  of  his  well,  of  a  consid- 
erable depth,  from  which  it  finds  a  covered  outlet  to  the  river  5  an  instance,  among 
3  ll^ousand  others,  of  the  great  alteration  in  the  town,  since  its  first  settlement," 


432  APPENDIX. 

said.  She  informed  me  that  your  ancestor.  Roger  Williams,  lived  in 
a  house  which  was  on  the  east  side  of  the  main  street,  a  little  south 
of  the  Episcopal  church,  the  foundation  whereof  then  remained, 
which  she  showed  me,  within  sight  of  her  house,  and  which  I  be- 
lieve is  also  now  removed,  as  I  saw  nothing  of  it,  on  looking  for  it, 
the  last  time  I  was  in  Providence.  So  transitory  are  all  things  per- 
taining to  humanity  !  She  told  me  there  was  no  doubt  that  Mr. 
Williams  was  buried  at  the  place  which  I  have  mentioned  ;  that  she 
had  always  been  told  so  ;  and  that  she  remembered  seeing  fruit  trees 
growing  there,  when  she  was  a  girl  ;  that  her  father  once  owned 
that  and  the  estate  where  Moses  Brown,  Esq.  now  hves ;  and  that 
there  was  a  gang-way,  fourteen  feet  wide,  south  of  Mrs.  Tripe's 
house,  given  by  Mr.  WiUiams,  to  go  to  his  spring,  originally  laid  out 
from  river  to  river,  near  which  gang-way  his  house  stood. 

"  I  have  an  original  letter,  in  the  hand-writing  of  Mr.  Williams, 
to  the  freemen  of  the  town  of  Providence,  dated  ''  11,  3,  CO,"  [May 
11,  1660]  claiming  personal  estate  of  John  Clowson,  who  had  been 
murdered  by  Waumaion,  an  Indian,  on  the  4th  day  of  the  preceding 
January,  containing  additional  proof  that  Mr.  Williams  then  lived 
near  the  spring  before  mentioned. 

"  I  can  give  no  satisfactory  information  relative  to  the  other  que- 
ries in  your  letter,  but  what  may  be  derived  from  the  records  of 
Providence  ;  nor  have  I  any  recollection  of  any  circumstance  which 
indicated  that  Mr.  Williams  left  a  will. 

''  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  be  able  to  furnish  useful  information  to 
any  of  my  friends,  from  documents  in  my  possession.  Though  in 
haste,  I  have  written  diffusely,  in  answer  to  your  letter.  So  far  as 
it  goes,  I  believe  the  information  it  contains  is  correct.  That  it  may 
in  some  degree,  answer  your  expectations,  and  the  purpose  for 
which  you  wanted  it,  is  the  wish  of 

"  Yours,  respectfully, 

THEODORE  FOSTER." 

The  following  extracts  from  a  letter,  inserted  in  the  American,  of 
July  20,  1819,  deserve  to  be  inserted,  as  illustrative  of  the  subject 
before  us : 

'•  Providence,  July  17,  1819. 
"  Messrs.  Goddard  &  Knowles, 

"  Observing,  in  your  paper  of  yesterday,  a  letter  from  the  Hon. 
Theodore  Foster,  respecting  Roger  Williams,  the  founder  of  this 
State,  I  am  induced  to  lay  before  the  public  the  following  facts,  com- 
municated to  me  by  the  late  Capt.  Nathaniel  Packard,  of  this  town, 
about  the  year  1808.  About  fifty  years  since,  there  was  some  stir 
about  erecting  a  monument  to  commemorate  that  distinguished  di- 
vine, civilian  and  statesman,  and  there  was  a  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  the  place  of  his  burial.  Capt.  Packard  was  then  absent,  but  had 
he  been  present,  he  could  have  pointed  out  the  very  spot  where 
Roger  Williams'  house  stood,  and  where  he  was  buried.  When  he 
was  about  ten  years  old,  one  of  the  descendants  of  Roger  Williams 
was  buried  at  the  family  burying-ground,  on  the  lot  right  back  of  the 
house  of  Sullivan  Dorr,  Esq.  Those  who  dug  the  grave,  dug  directly 
upon  the  foot  of  the  coffin,  which  the  people  there  present  told  him 


APPENDIX.  433 

was  Roger  Williams'.  They  let  him  down  into  the  new  grave,  and 
he  saw  the  bones  in  the  coffin,  which  was  not  wholly  decayed,  and 
the  bones  had  a  long,  mossy  substance  upon  them.  Roger  Williams 
was  born  in  1590,  and  died  in  1683.  Captain  Packard  was  son  of 
Fearnot  Packard,  who  lived  in  a  small  house,  standing  a  little  south 
of  the  house  of  Philip  Allen,  Esq.  and  about  fifty  feet  south  of  the 
noted  spring.  In  this  house  Captain  Packard  was  born,  in  1730, 
and  died  in  1809,  being  seventy-nine  years  old.  He  was  born  forty- 
seven  years  after  Williams  died.  So  if  he  was  ten  years  old  when 
Williams'  descendant  was  buried,  it  was  fifty-seven  years  after  Wil- 
liams died. 

'•  As  the  people  at  the  funeral  of  Williams'  descendant  told  Cap- 
tain Packard  that  Williams  was  buried  in  the  grave  dug  upon,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  Roger  Williams  was  buried  in  the  lot  back  of 
JMr.  Dorr's  house,  in  his  own  family  burying-ground,  where  I  my- 
self have  seen  stones  to  a  number  of  the  graves,  within  twenty 
years,  which  have  since  been  removed.  But,  though  the  stones  are 
not  to  be  found,  yet  I  cannot  but  venerate  the  spot  where,  I  have  no 
doubt,  the  dust  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  that  ever  lived 
mingled  with  its  mother  earth. 

'•'Mrs.  Nabby  Packard,  widow  of  Captain  Packard,  who  is  eighty- 
five  years  old,  told  me,  this  day,  that  her  late  husband  had  often 
mentioned  the  above  facts  to  her;  and  his  daughter,  Miss  Mary 
Packard,  states,  that  her  father  often  told  her  the  same. 

'*  As  to  where  Roger  Williams'  dwelling-house  stood.  Captain  Na- 
thaniel Packard  told  me,  that  when  he  was  a  boy,  he  used  to  play  in 
a  cellar,  which  had  a  large  peach-tree  in  it,  which  cellar,  he  said, 
was  situate  on  a  lot  back  of  the  house  built  by  Thomas  Owen,  father 
of  the  late  Hon.  Daniel  Owen,  afterwards  owned  by  Levi  Whipple, 
and  now  owned  by  the  heirs  of  the  late  Simeon  H.  Olney,  directly 
north  of  the  house  owned  by  Ezra  Hubbard,  and  near  where  an  out- 
building now  stands.  The  people,  at  that  time,  called  it  Roger 
Williams'  cellar.  Mrs.  Nabby  Packard,  Nathaniel  Packard's  widow, 
told  me  this  day,  that  she  came  to  live  where  she  now  lives,  when 
she  was  eighteen  years  old,  which  was  sixty-seven  years  ago,  and 
that  she  well  remembers  the  cellar,  and  that  it  was  called  Roger  Wil- 
liams' cellar.  The  site  of  the  house  was  a  little  east  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams' spring,  and  situate  directly  on  the  road  laid  out  from  said 
spring,  to  the  upper  ferry,  (now  Central  Bridge.)  The  spring  is 
called  Roger  Williams'  spring,  and  he  owned  the  land  all  around  it, 
being  the  very  place  where  he  sat  upon  the  rock,  and  conversed 
with  the  Indians.  The  above  facts,  derived  from  Captain  N.  Pack- 
ard, his  widow  and  daughter,  are  indubitable  evidences,  that  his 
house  was  where  it  is  above  stated  to  have  been,  and  that  he  was 
buried  in  the  lot  back  of  Mr.  Dorr's  house." 

It  is  hoped,  that  the  prosperous  city  of  Providence  will  not,  much 
longer,  endure  the  reproach  of  permitting  her  founder's  grave  to  re- 
main without  any  memorial  to  indicate  the  spot.  It  is  already  too 
late,  perhaps,  to  ascertain  the  precise  place  where  his  ashes  lie,  but  it 
may  be  found,  within  a  few  feet.     The  ffround  around  it  ought  to  be 

3S 


434  APPENDIX. 

obtained  by  the  city,  a  handsome  monument  erected,  and  the  whole 
enclosed  within  a  permanent  iron  fence,  and  adorned  with  trees, 
shrubbery,  &c.  It  would  thus  form  an  interesting  spot,  which  the 
citizen  would  visit  with  interest,  and  which  the  stranger  would  seek 
as  one  of  the  principal  points  of  attraction.  It  has  been  proposed  to 
erect  a  monument  in  some  other  part  of  the  city  ;  but  it  would  be  ab- 
surd to  place  it  any  where  else  than  on  the  spot  where  his  bones  are 
interred.  The  spot  itself  is  interesting,  because  he  owned  it,  and 
was  buried  there.  It  is  surprising  that  his  children  ever  allowed  it 
to  be  sold. 

In  regard  to  the  family  of  Mr.  Williams,  little  is  now  known.  Even 
his  lineal  descendants  seem  to  have  a  very  scanty  knowledge  of  their 
ancestor.  A  few  facts  have  been  collected,  though  I  cannot  vouch 
for  their  accuracy. 

His  wife,  it  is  supposed,  survived  him,  but  when  and  where  she 
died,  we  know  not. 

It  is  nearly  certain,  that  he  left  no  will.  He  probably  had  very  lit- 
tle, if  any  property,  to  bequeath. 

He  had  six  children  : 

1.  Mary,  born  at  Plymouth,  the  first  week  in  August,  1633. 
Whether  she  was  married  or  not,  is  uncertain.  In  Mr.  Williams' 
book  against  George  Fox,  he  speaks  of  his  daughter  Hart,  as  residing 
in  Newport.     Mary  may  have  married  a  person  of  this  name. 

2.  Freeborn,  born  at  Salem,  the  end  of  October,  1635.  Of  her, 
nothing  further  is  known  to  me. 

3.  Providence,  born  at  Providence,  the  end  of  September,  1638, 
He  died  unmarried,  in  Newport  [another  account  says,  in  Provi- 
dence] March,  1685-6. 

4.  Marcy,  born  July  15,  1640.  She  was  married  to  Resolved 
Waterman,  of  Warwick,  by  whom  she  had  four  sons  and  one  daugh- 
ter. After  his  death,  she  was  married  to  Samuel  Winsor,  of  Provi- 
dence,  by  whom  she    had  two  sons  and   one   daughter.     After  his 

death,  she  was  married  to Rhodes,  of  Pawtuxet,  by  whom  she 

had  several  children. 

5.  Daniel,  born  February  15,1641-2.  He  married  Rebecca  Power, 
widowof  Nicholas  Power.  He  died  May  14, 1712.  He  had  five  sons, 
Peleg,  Roger,  Daniel,  Joseph,  Providence.  Peleg  had  four  sons, 
Peleg,  Robert,  Silas,  Timothy  ;  and  two  daughters,  who  were  mar- 
ried to  Daniel  Fisk  and  John  Fisk.  Roger  had  two  daughters,  one 
of  whom  was  married  to  Jonathan  Tourtellot,  and  the  other  to  David 
Thayer.  Daniel  died  unmarried.  Joseph  had  two  sons,Benoni  and 
Goliah.     Providence  had  one  daughter,  Elizabeth. 

6.  Joseph,  born  the  beginning  of  December,  1643.  He  married 
Lydia  Olney,  December  17,  1669.  He  had  three  sons,  Joseph, 
Thomas  and  James.  Joseph  had  one  son,  Jeremiah,  and  eight  daugh- 
ters, who  were  married  to  Francis  Atwood,  William  Randall,  Joseph 
Randal],  John  Randall,  William  Dyer,  Benjamin  Potter,  Benjamin 
Congdon,  John  Dyer.  Thomas  had  three  sons,  Joseph,  Thomas 
and  John,  and  several  daughters.  James  had  four  sons,  James,  Na- 
thaniel, Joseph  and  Nathan. 

Joseph  Williams  lived,  for  several  years,  on  a  farm  in  Crans- 
ton, three  or  four  miles  from  Providence,  where  he  died,  August 


APPENDIX.  435 

17,  1724,  in  the  eighty-first  year  of  his  age,  and  was  buried  in  the 
family  burying  ground,  on  the  farm,  where  his  grave  stone  now 
stands,  with  this  inscription  : 

'•  Here  lies  the  body  of  Joseph  Williams,  Esq.  son  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams, Esq.  who  was  the  first  white  man  that  came  to  Providence. 
He  was  born  1644.  He  died  August  17,  1724,  in  the  eighty-first 
year  of  his  age. 

In  King  Philip's  war,  he  courageously  went  through, 

And  the  native  Indians  he  bravely  did  subdue, 

And  now  he's  gone  down  to  the  grave,  and  he  will  be  no  more, 

Until  it  please  Almighty  God  his  body  to  restore, 

Into  some  proper  shape,  as  he  thinks  fit  to  be, 

Perhaps  like  a  grain  of  wheal,  as  Paul  sets  forth,  you  see, 

{Corinthians,  1st  hook,  loth  chajiter,  37th  verse.)" 

His  wife  died  a  few  days  after  him,  and  was  buried  by  his  side. 
Her  grave-stone  bears  this  inscription  : 

"  In  memory  of  Lydia  Williams,  wife  of  Joseph  Williams,  Esq. 
who  died  September  9,  1724,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  her  age." 

In  the  same  yard,  is  the  grave  of  their  youngest  son.  The  stone 
has  this  inscription  : 

"  Here  lies  the  body  of  James  Williams,  son  of  Joseph  Williams 
and  Lydia  his  wife,  who  was  born  September  24,  1680,  died  June 
25,  1757,  in  the  seventy-seventh  year  of  his  age. 

He  was  of  a  moderate  temper  and  easy  mind, 
He  to  peace  was  chiefly  inclined  ; 
In  peace  he  did  live,  in  peace  he  would  be. 
We  hope  it  may  last  to  eternity." 


Note  I.  p.  389. 

That  Mr.  Williams  ought  to  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the 
State  of  Rhode-Island,  cannot  be  denied.  His  settlement  of  Provi- 
dence, the  first  town  in  the  State  ;  his  services  in  procuring  the 
cession  of  the  island  by  the  Indians  ;  his  efforts  to  procure  the  first 
charter,  and  his  various  Sctcrifices  and  toils  for  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  colony,  entitle  him  to  the  merit  of  being  considered  as  the 
founder,  though  other  men,  like  Mr.  Clarke,  rendered  great  and  im- 
portant services.  Mr.  Williams  claims  this  honor,  in  his  letter  in- 
serted on  page  349  of  this  volume. 

His  principles  have  steadily  jjrovailed  in  Rhode-Island,  till  the 
present  hour.  No  man  has  ever  been  molested,  on  account  of  his 
religious  principles.  Gentlemen,  of  all  the  existing  denominations, 
have  been  elected  magistrates.  Mr.  Callender  said,  in  1738  :  '•  The 
civil  state  has  flourished,  as  well  as  if  secured  by  ever  so  many  penal 
laws,  and  an  Inquisition  to  put  them  in  execution.  Our  civil  offi- 
cers have  been  chosen  out  of  every  religious  society,  and  the  public 
peace  has  been  as  well  preserved,  and  the  public  councils  as  well 
conducted,  as  we  could  have  expected,  had  we  been  assisted  by  ever 
so  many  religious  tests." — p.  107. 

In  respect  to  the  religious  concerns  of  the  colony,  it  may  be  said, 
that  if  they  had  been  such  as  they  have  sometiiues  been  represented, 
an  argument  could  not  fairly  be  drawn  from  them  unfriendly  to  Mr. 


436  APPENDIX. 

Williams'  principles.  It  must  be  recollected,  that  intolerance  pre- 
vailed in  the  neighboring  colonies,  and  Rhode-Island  was  a  refuge 
for  men  of  all  opinions.  There  was  consequently  a  great  variety  of 
sects,  all  weak,  at  first,  and  unable  to  do  much  towards  the  support 
of  religion.  Rhode-Island  thus  suffered  from  the  intolerance  of  her 
neighbors;  for  if  they  had  granted  the  enjoyment  of  religous  liberty 
to  their  citizens,  many  who  went  to  Rhode-Island,  and  created  dis- 
turbances there,  would  have  remained  in  the  other  colonies.  The 
difficulties  which  arose,  in  the  early  part  of  the  history  of  Rhode- 
Island,  are  rather  proofs  of  the  evils  of  intolerance  in  the  other 
colonies,  than  evidences  of  the  injurious  tendencies  of  Mr.  Williams' 
doctrines.  If  all  the  uneasy  and  discordant  spirits  in  the  other  States 
of  New-England  were  driven,  by  the  force  of  intolerant  laws,  into 
Massachusetts,  she  would  speedily  lose  some  portion  of  her  high 
character  for  morality  and  good  order. 

But  the  state  of  religion  in  Rhode-Island  has  been  misrepresented. 
Mr.  Callender,  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  vindicated  the  character 
of  the  State.  He  said,  that  there  were,  in  the  fourteen  towns  which 
then  composed  the  state,*  thirty  religious  societies,  all  of  which 
were  then  supplied  with  ministers,  except  probably  the  meetings  of 
Friends.  Of  these  societies,  nine  were  Baptists,  nine  Friends,  five 
Congregationalists,  five  Episcopalians,  and  two  Sabbatarians. t  Mr. 
Callender  says,  "  Thus,  notwithstanding  all  the  liberty  and  indul- 
gence here  allowed,  and  notwithstanding  the  inhabitants  have  been 
represented  as  living  without  a  public  worship,  and  as  ungospellized 
plantations,  we  see  there  is  some  form  of  godliness  every  where 
maintained." — p.  68.     He  says,  in  another  place  : 

"  I  take  it  to  have  been  no  dishonor  to  the  colony,  that  Christians, 
of  every  denomination,  were  suffered  to  lead  quiet  and  peaceable 
lives,  without  any  fines,  or  punishments  for  their  speculative  opin- 
ions, or  for  using  those  external  forms  of  worship,  they  believed  God 
had  appointed,  and  would  accept.  Bigots  may  call  this  confusion 
and  disorder,  and  it  may  be  so,  according  to  their  poor  worldly  no- 
tions of  religion,  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  But  the  pretended 
order  of  human  authority,  assuming  the  place  and  prerogatives  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  trampling  on  the  consciences  of  his  subjects,  is,  as 
Mr.  R.  Williams  most  justly  calls  it,  "  monstrous  disorder." — p.  50. 

"  Notwithstanding  our  constitution  left  every  one  to  his  own  lib- 
erty, and  his  conscience ;  and  notwithstanding  the  variety  of  opinions 
that  were  entertained,  and  notwithstanding  some  may  have   con- 


*  These  towns  were,  in  the  order  of  their  settlement  or  incorporation:  Providence, 
1636;  Portsmouth,  1637-8;  Newport,  1638-9;  Warwick,  1642-3;  Westerly,  166,5; 
New  Shoreham,  1672  ;  East-Greenwich,  1677  ;  Jamestown,  1678;  North-Kingstown,  and 
South-Kingstown,  1722  ;  Smithfield,  Glocester,  and  Scituate,  1730;  Charlestown,  1738. 
In  1730,  the  wiiole  number  of  inhabitants  in  the  colony,  was  17,935.  The  towns  of 
Bun  illville,  Cranston,  Cumberland,  Foster,  Johnston,  North-Providence,  Liltle-Comp- 
ton,  IVliddletown,  Tiverton,  Coventiy,  West-Greenwich,  Exeter,  lio])kinton,  Richmond, 
Barrington,  Bristol,  and  Warien,  have  been  since  added,  making  the  total  number  of 
towns   thirty-one.     Population,  in  1830,  97,212. 

t  This  list  shows  how  unjustly  some  persons,  who  have  chosen  to  vilify  Rhode-Island, 
have  made  the  Baptists  responsible  for  every  thing  which  was  done,  or  neglected.  The 
Baptists  have  always,  perhaps,  been  more  numerous  than  any  other  denomination,  but  they 
have  been  a  minority  of  the  whole  community.  In  1738,  it  seems,  they  had  but  nine,  out 
of  thirty  religious  societies  or  chuiches. 


APPENDIX.  437 

tracted  too  great  an  indifference  to  any  social  worship,  yet  I  am  well 
assured,  there  scarce  ever  was  a  time,  the  hundred  years  past,  in 
which  there  was  not  a  weekly  public  worship  of  God,  attended  by 
Christians,  on  tliis  island,  and  in  the  other  first  towns  of  the  col- 
ony."— p.  51 

It  is  believed,  that  at  the  present  time,  there  are  as  many  religious 
societies  in  Rhode-Island,  as  in  other  States,  in  proportion  to  the 
population,  and  that  the  ministry  is  as  well  supported,  though  it  is 
done  by  the  voluntary  liberality  of  the  respective  societies.  The 
state  of  morality  and  religion  would,  it  is  believed,  bear  a  favorable 
comparison  with  that  in  other  States. 

But  the  true  test  of  the  effects  of  Mr.  Williams'  principles  is  their 
operation  on  a  large  scale.  The  religious  liberty  which  prevails  in 
the  United  States  demonstrates,  that  religion  may  be  sustained,  and 
diffused,  without  any  dependence  on  the  civil  power.  It  is  believed, 
that  in  no  other  nation  on  earth,  are  the  principles  of  Christianity 
so  efficacious  in  their  influence  on  the  great  mass  of  the  inhabitants ; 
in  no  other  country,  are  revivals  of  religion  so  frequent ;  in  no  other 
country,  are  there  so  few  crimes.  Here  we  leave  the  argument. 
May  the  principles  of  Roger  Williams  soon  prevail  in  every  land, 
and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord 
and  of  his  Christ. 


i 


FULLER'S    WORKS,   COMPLETE. 


LINCOLN,  EDMANDS  &  CO.  have  recently  published  this 
valuable  work,  in  two  large  octavo  volumes,  on  a  fairburgeois  type 
and  fine  paper,  at  the  very  reasonable  price  of  G  dollars.  The  cost 
of  the  former  edition  (14  dollars)  precluded  many  students  from 
replenishing  their  libraries;  and  the}'  are  now  gratified  in  being  able 
to  posses  a  work  so  replete  with  doctrinal  arguments  and  j}ractical 
religion.  No  Christian  can  read  Fuller  without  having  his  impulses 
to  action  quickened — and  every  student  ought  to  study  him,  if  he 
wishes  to  arm  himself  against  the  attempts  of  every  enemy. 

Since  this  edition  has  been  issued,  several  perodicals  have  noticed 
it  with  full  commendation.  We  have  recently  given  extracts  from 
notices  in  the  Boston  Recorder,  Christian  Watchman,  &c. — and  we 
now  make  a  few  extracts  from  an  able  review  of  the  work,  which 
appeared  in  the  October  number  of  the  American  Baptist  Magazine. 
It  was  written  by  the  President  of  a  College,  at  the  South,  and  is 
admired  for  its  elegant  and  just  view  of  the  sentiments  of  this  great 
author. 

He  says  : — '•  This  work,  in  the  material  and  style  of  execution,  is 
highly  creditable  to  the  American  press.  The  publishers,  in  issuing 
this  work,  have  conferred  an  obligation  upon  community,  and  will, 
doubtless,  be  rewarded  in  a  liberal  return  of  their  investment.  Mr. 
Fuller  was  among  the  few  extraordinary  men  who  have  ever  ap- 
peared in  this  world.  He  possessed  great  vigor  of  intellect,  an  un- 
common share  of  good  sense,  inflexible  integrity,  and  the  most  ardent 
love  for  truth.  All  his  powers,  therefore,  were  early  consecrated 
to  the  service  of  the  church.  His  mind  was  turned,  even  before  he 
entered  the  ministry,  to  the  study  of  those  great  truths,  which  in- 
volve the  highest  honor  of  God,  and  the  dearest  interests  of  man. 
These  truths  he  embraced  with  all  the  affections  of  his  heart,  and 
maintained  with  wonderfnl  acuteness,  and  by  invincible  argu- 
ments ;  for  they  were  indeed  the  sheet-anchor  of  his  soul.  He  pos- 
sessed very  clear  and  consistent  views  of  human  depravity,  and  of 
the  grounds  of  moral  obligation.  To  gain  them,  however,  he  had 
to  endure  heavy  trials  and  severe  studies. 

*'  The  grand  design  of  Mr.  Fuller,  as  a  writer,  was  to  produce  moral 
action.  He  believed  in  the  divine  purpose,  that  the  rest  of  heaven 
shall  be  gained  through  constant  vigilance  and  labor.  In  this  way 
the  Christian  character  is  to  be  formed,  and  the  soul  fitted  for  future 
blessedness.  But  notwithstanding  the  necessity  of  this  painful  care 
and  effort,  man  is  much  inclined  to  be  heedless  and  slothful ;  and 
this  proneness  has  been  strengthened  by  ingenious  and  plausible 
theories  in  religion.  Of  this  truth  Mr.  Fuller  had  abundant  evi- 
dence. In  his  life  and  travels,  he  witnessed  the  hyper-calvinistic, 
or  antinomian  spirit,  sweeping  over  the  churches,  withering  up,  like 
the  Sirocco's  blast,  their  vital  principle,  and  converting  them  into 
barren  wastes.  Nor  was  the  influence  of  this  spirit  confined  to  pro- 
fessors. Its  legitimate  tendency  is,  to  keep  both  saints  and  sinners 
in  a  state  of  inaction.  For  it  exalts  the  former  above  obligation, 
and  sinks  the  latter  below  it.  This  spirit  he  knew  had  its  origin  in 
the  false  notion,  that  human  apostacy  releases  sinners  from  the 


tlulles  of  piety,  and  that  the  gospel  dispensation  is  designed  to 
render  the  law  useless,  and  to  excuse  the  people  of  God  from  com- 
plying with  its  requirements.  Over  these  things  Mr.  Fuller  prayed 
and  wept.  And  when  he  took  up  his  pen,  it  was  his  chief  purpose 
to  correct  these  errors,  and  thus  to  rouse  the  church  from  their  par- 
alyzing influence.  In  accomplishing  his  object,  he  resorted  to  no 
unwarranted  expedients.  He  believed  that  God  had  provided  ade- 
quate agents  to  sway  the  soul,  and  that  these  are  principally  three  ; 
truth,  motive,  and  the  influences  of  tho  Divine  Spirit.  Truth  con- 
vinces the  understanding,  motive  affects  the  heart,  and  the  Spirit 
overcomes  the  will.  The  great  cause,  he  believed,  why  the  means 
of  salvation  have  produced  so  little  effect,  is — that  their  power  has 
been  greatly  weakened  by  human  devices.  Truth  has  been  eclipsed, 
conscience  stupified,  and  the  heart  allured  by  unscriptural  mo- 
tives. The  constant  aim,  therefore,  of  this  eminent  man,  was  to 
disperse  the  darkness,  in  which  truth  was  involved,  that  it  might 
shine  forth  in  all  its  heavenly  lustre.  He  labored  to  remove  from 
the  divine  law  the  deadening  swathe  with  which  it  had  been  bound, 
by  those  who  feared  its  edge,  that  it  might  act  with  unobstructed 
force.  It  has  been  said  of  the  immortal  Butler,  that  he  has  done 
more  than  any  other  man  to  restore  to  conscience  her  sovereign 
sway  in  the  human  soul.  So  we  may  say,  that  Fuller  has,  probably, 
done  more  than  any  other  divine,  to  restore  to  the  law  of  God,  or 
to  gospel  truth,  its  sacred  dominion  in  the  economy  of  grace.  Truth 
and  the  voice  of  conscience  are  the  two  great  ruling  powers  in  the 
moral  world.  Hence  the  well-being  of  society  requires,  that  they 
should  be  constantly  kept  in  the  clearest  light.  And  that  man,  who 
is  the  instrument,  in  giving  these  chief  elements  of  power  the  freest 
action  upon  the  human  mind,  renders  the  most  important  service  to 
his  fellow-men. 

''  There  is  another  light  in  which  we  are  anxious  the  publications 
of  Mr.  Fuller  should  be  viewed — in  their  adaptedness  to  prevent 
two  evils,  to  which  the  Christian  world  at  the  present  day  are  pecu- 
liarly exposed.  These  are,  first,  losing  sight  of  that  mysterious  and 
divine  agency,  on  which  the  success  of  all  their  efforts  must  depend. 
And,  second,  failing  to  keep  in  full  view  those  cardinal  truths  of 
the  gospel,  by  wliich  they  must  gain  and  su))port  all  their  victories 
in  the. empire  of  darkness.  In  every  period  the  church  has  been 
inclined  to  forget  her  dependence  on  divine  influences;  but,  perhaps, 
never  so  much  so,  as  in  the  present. 

'•  Though  for  thirty  years  we  have  been  conversant  with  the 
writings  of  Mr.  Fuller,  yet  we  must  say,  that  this  revision  of  them 
has  greatly  heightened  them  in  our  estimation.  And  viewing  them 
in  the  light  we  do,  we  cannot  but  indulge  the  belief,  that  they  will, 
for  ages  yet  to  come,  continue  to  enlighten  and  bless  the  church  of 
Christ." 

This  edition  was  printed  from  a  London  edition,  just  revised,  bj  Mr.  A.  G.  Fuller, 
who  says,  in  his  preCace,  "In  presenting  to  the  public  what  has  long  been  called  lor, 
viz.  a  complete  edition  of  the  works  of  my  revered  fither,  it  is  unnecessary  to  offer  any 
remarks  on  the  character  of  the  writings,  most  of  which  have  for  many  years  been  before 
the  public,  and  must  now  be  supposed  to  stand  on  their  own  merits.  It  may,  however, 
be  proper  to  state,  that  the  present  edition  not  only 'contains  a  great  number  of  valuable 
pieces  which  had  been  before  unavoidably  omitted,  but  also  a  portion  of  original  manu- 
sci  ipt,  part  of  which  is  woven  into  the  memoir,  and  part  inserted  in  the  last  volume." 


